UAE among top 20th happiest countries ahead of many European nations

The first ever report about “World Happiness,” sponsored by United Nations, released on Monday, 2nd of April 2012. The report is an attempt to measure social and economic well-being around the world.

The UAE is among the world’s top 20 happiest countries in the world, according to the UN's survey released on Tuesday.

The report was presented at April 2nd United Nations Conference on Happiness (mandated by the UN General Assembly). The 150-page report, published by the Earth Institute and co-edited by the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs, put worldwide attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteria for government policies. It reviews the state of happiness in the present day world and shows how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.

The report emphasis that Political freedom, strong social networks and an absence of corruption are together more important than income in explaining well-being differences between the top and bottom countries. At the individual level, good mental and physical health, job security and stable families are crucial.

The report also suggested governments to promote happiness among their citizens including helping people meet their basic needs, reinforcing social systems, improving mental health services, promoting physical health, implementing active labour policies, limiting the scale of greenhouse gas emissions, etc.

Ranked 17th globally, the results showed that the UAE residents are more satisfied than others especially than people in UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Hong Kong among others.

The list of happiest nations is dominated by North European nations. Denmark was ranked at the top of the scale, ahead of Finland, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada.

From the Sub-continent, Iran ranked 84, Pakistan is at 85 while India ranked 94.

The 10 least happy countries were, mostly from Africa, listed as Togo, Benin, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Comoros, Haiti, Tanzania, Congo (Brazzaville) and Bulgaria.