Azlan Othman

Finland took the top spot as the happiest place in the world for the fifth year in a row, surpassing other top 10 countries, the World Happiness Report said.

Denmark occupied second place, with Iceland up from fourth place last year to third this year. Switzerland is fourth, followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand rounded off the top 10. The next five are Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Canada.

This marks a substantial fall for Canada, which was fifth 10 years ago. The rest of the top 20 include the United States at 16th (up from 19th last year), the United Kingdom and the Czechia still in 17th and 18th, followed by Belgium at 19th and France at 20th, its highest ranking yet.

In Southeast Asia, Singapore secured the top spot as the happiest nation, ranking 27th. This was followed by the Philippines (60th place), Thailand (61st), Vietnam (77th), Indonesia (87th), Laos (95th), Cambodia (114th) and Myanmar (126th). Brunei Darussalam was not included in the survey.

Afghanistan held the last position at 146th in the list, with Lebanon (145th), Zimbabwe (144th), Rwanda (143rd), and Botswana (142nd).

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, issued annually by the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The report ranks 150 countries (146 in 2022) in the world.

The index is calculated using people’s self-reported happiness as well as economic and social data and, based on a three-year average, assigns a happiness score in the range zero to 10.

This year, it also used data from social media to compare people’s emotions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Happiness Report reached more than nine million people in 2021. Since it was first published, the report has been based on two key ideas: that happiness or life evaluation can be measured through opinion surveys, and that they can identify key determinants of well-being and thereby explain the patterns of life evaluation across countries.

This information, in turn, can help countries to craft policies aimed at achieving happier societies.

The report stated that “over the past 10 years, life evaluations rose by more than a full point on the zero to 10 scale in 15 countries and fell by that amount or more in eight countries”.

According to the report, the 10 countries with the largest gains from 2008-2012 to 2019-2021 were, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Togo, Bahrain, Latvia, Benin, Guinea, and Armenia.

The 10 countries with the largest drops were Lebanon, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Zambia, India, Mexico, and Botswana.

President of SDSN and Director of the Earth Institute’s Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs said, “A decade ago, governments around the world expressed the desire to put happiness at the heart of the global development agenda, and they adopted a UN General Assembly resolution for that purpose.

“The World Happiness Report grew out of that worldwide determination to find the path to greater global well-being. Now, at a time of pandemic and war, we need such an effort more than ever.

“And the lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being. World leaders should take heed of this.

“Politics should be directed as the great sages long ago insisted: to the well-being of the people, not the power of the rulers,” he said.

This year’s report comes in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has upended lives around the world.

“COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we’ve seen in more than a century,” said John Helliwell of Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia.

“Now that we have two years of evidence, we are able to assess not just the importance of benevolence and trust, but to see how they have contributed to well-being during the pandemic.

“We found during 2021 remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll. Helping strangers, volunteering, and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25 per cent above their pre-pandemic prevalence.

“This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves,” he said.

Meanwhile, Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at University of Oxford Jan-Emmanuel De Neve noted that “at the very bottom of the ranking we find societies that suffer from conflict and extreme poverty, notably we find that people in Afghanistan evaluate the quality of their own lives as merely 2.4 out of 10.

“This presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims and the fundamental importance of peace and stability for human well-being”.

OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – With its imposing, angular proportions made out of clay, laterite and other local building materials, the Opera Village cultural and educational project, designed by Burkina Faso-born architect Francis Kere, blends into the landscape.

It overlooks Laongo, a rural community not far from Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, and is the sort of groundbreaking design that helped Kere scoop architecture’s most prestigious award, the Pritzker Prize, this week.

In so doing, the 56 year-old, who holds dual Burkina and German nationality, became the first African to win the honour in its more than 40-year history.

Built on 20 hectares of a granite plateau, the Opera Village is shaped like a spiral, with 26 buildings housing workshops, a health centre, guest houses and a school.

Eventually, at its centre will be a performance venue and covered exhibition area with 700 seats.

Built in the early 2010s with the aim of combining art, education and ecology, the project was the brainchild of late German theatre director and filmmaker Christoph Schlingensief.

Kere was hailed by the Pritzker’s sponsors last Tuesday for designs that are “sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants – in lands of extreme scarcity”.

His Opera Village used local construction materials, such as clay, laterite, granite and wood to allow it to withstand the extreme heat of the region, the site’s administrator Motandi Ouoba said.

“These are local materials that the architect found on site: blocks of compressed earth, bricks taken from the site, paving stones made from granite,” he said.

Kere “starts with the simplest material, which we commonly share… which our parents used, and he makes something noble out of it,” he added.

“It’s the earth, it’s all that’s around us, when he brings them together, he brings to life something that is magnificent.”

It also blends well with local vegetation, contributing to a sense of harmony.

The immense roofs overhang the walls and ventilation keeps the temperature in the rooms down, even when it’s more than 40 degrees Celsius outside.

Kere ensured that “our buildings are bioclimatic, with a double ceiling and openings to dissipate hot air”, Ouoba said.

The health centre’s consultation and treatment rooms have dozens of long windows that slide upwards.

“With so many openings, patients feel less isolated by hospitalisation. They have a view of the landscape,” doctor Issa Ouedraogo said.

The stylish classrooms filled with daylight are a far cry from the makeshift decor of many of the schools in Burkina Faso, a country battling an insurgency since 2015 that swept in from neighbouring Mali.

“The architecture of the buildings changes everything. We are in perfect classrooms because it is very hot here and not everyone can afford fans or air conditioning,” said headmaster Abdoulaye Ouedraogo, who is also an actor and playwright.

Six classrooms can accommodate 181 pupils – and there’s a separate space for music, dance, theatre, plastic arts, photography and audiovisual lessons.

Opera Village also serves as a creative residency site for artists, according to Ouoba.

“It reminds us that we can get something beautiful and functional from local materials,” he said.

With its unique architecture, the centre attracts around 2,500 visitors every year.

Ouoba hopes that international recognition of Francis Kere will help maintain the curiosity of visitors.

“This very prestigious prize is the pride of everyone, especially in these times when Burkinabe news is dominated by terrorist attacks.”