One of the go-to measurements for top-ranked countries across the globe is the US News & World Report’s Best Countries ranking. The analysis uses 73 attributes to determine the best countries in the world for a range of indicators – Power, Quality of Life, Adventure, Citizenship, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship. These indicators are referred to in the report as ‘sub-rankings’. The sub-rankings themselves have different weights, for example the Adventure sub-ranking accounts for just 2 per cent of the score, while the Citizenship sub-ranking accounts for over 15% of a country’s total score.
A total of 20,548 individuals from 36 countries in four regions – the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and Africa – were surveyed.
According to the report, the title of Best Country in the World belongs to Switzerland, which scored within the top ten for Entrepreneurship, Citizenship, Open for Business, and Quality of Life. The second best country in the world is Canada – which presumably explains why so many people are flocking there.
Choosing the countries to rank
The 73 countries in the 2020 Best Countries rankings had to meet four criteria within the most recent year for which data are available specific to each benchmark to be included in the study:
- Top 100 countries in terms of gross domestic product in 2017, based on World Bank data
- Top 100 countries in terms of foreign direct investment inflows in 2017, based on World Bank data • Top 100 countries in terms of international tourism receipts in 2017, based on World Bank data
- Top 150 countries in the U.N.’s Human Development Index, based on the 2017 report
Those that did not reach all four of these benchmarks and those that did not report these statistics were not included.
How is quality of life defined in the report?
The report defines quality of life to mean the following: a good job market, affordable, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system, well-developed public health system.
The report weights this sub-ranking at 16.77 per cent of the total score. Note that a nation’s total score reflects the weighted sum of its sub-ranking scores. The sub-ranking and overall scores are rescaled so that the top country in each category gets given a value of 100 and others are calculated as a proportion of that top score.
The best African countries for quality of life
(Morocco is our top performer in Africa for the quality of life metric.)
- Morocco: QOL score 50
(Best country global ranking: 40)
- Egypt: QOL score 54
(Best Country global ranking: 36)
- South Africa: QOL score 56
(Best Country global ranking: 39)
- Kenya: QOL score 57
(Best Country global ranking: 53)
- Tunisia: QOL score 61
(Best Country global ranking: 69)
- Ghana: QOL score 65
(Best Country global ranking: 67)
So, who’s off to Morocco?
