A report by the United Nations (UN) on World Happiness revealed that Kenyans are the happiest people in East Africa.
Among the other countries assessed in the UN report, Kenya ranked at position 121 out of 156, followed by Uganda at position 136. Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania as Rwanda and Tanzania tailed at position 145, 153 and 154 respectively. The country improved from position 124 in 2017 to position 121 in 2018.
According to the survey, other than peoples’ emotions there are other parameters that can influence a nation’s happiness. Among the fastest changing aspects are those relating to how people communicate and interact with each other, whether in their schools and workplaces, their neighbourhoods or in far-flung parts of the world, the study noted
A country’s GDP, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, government’s relationship with its people, the power of prosocial behaviour, changes in information technology influence happiness by changing the ways in which communities and their members interact with each other.
The link between the government and its, people in relation to happiness operates in both directions.
” What governments do affect happiness and in turn, the happiness of citizens in most countries determines what kind of governments they support. The effects of government actions on happiness are often difficult to separate from the influences of other things happening at the same time. Unravelling may sometimes be made easier by having measures of citizen satisfaction in various domains of life,” the study noted.
Overall, Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world second time, with Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Austria making it to the top 10. In Africa, Mauritius topped the list at position 57 followed by Libya and Nigeria.
South Sudan emerged as the unhappiest nation in the world and in Africa, where the UN recently noted that 400,000 lives have been claimed in the bloody civil war while 60% of the total population suffers from food insecurity.
