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- Jan 23, 2014
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In Summary
- Some of the areas that boosted Kenya's performance include: sending peace-keeping troops to Somalia, hosting refugees, voluntary excess donations to World Health Organisation, Internet security, international publications in science and technology, the number of UN volunteers abroad and charity giving.
First of its kind in the world, the Good Country Index however ranked Kenya 26th globally by checking several factors that determine whether the country is a burden to the planet or a net creditor to mankind.
The study ranks countries under seven main categories: world order, prosperity and equality, planet and climate, health and well-being, science and technology and culture.
Prosperity and equality
Kenya also took the fourth position in Africa in the "prosperity and equality" category, coming after Ghana, which led on the continent, and Zambia and Botswana at second and third positions respectively.
Some of the areas that boosted Kenya's performance include: sending peace-keeping troops to Somalia, hosting refugees, voluntary excess donations to World Health Organisation, Internet security, international publications in science and technology, the number of UN volunteers abroad and charity giving.
Independent national policy advisor Simon Anholt, who co-authored the study with scholar Robert Govers, said the results of the survey were a blend of different national and international indicators.
"The Index doesn't measure what countries do at home, but how countries can balance their duty to their own citizens with their responsibility to the wider world, because this is essential for the future of humanity and the health of our planet," he said.
Simon Anholt is the winner of the Nobels Colloquia Prize for Economics in Trieste, 2009 and has a Masters Degree from the University of Oxford. He is also a parliamentarian in the European Cultural Parliament.
Robert Govers is a visiting scholar at the Rotterdam School of Manag-ement, Netherlands, IULM University Milano, Italy, and several institutes in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He also teaches Place Branding on the Unesco World Heritage at Work Master Programme in Torino, Italy.
Researchers said Kenya was an "inspiring example" which showed that making a meaningful contribution to society is "by no means the exclusive province of rich ‘first-world' nations".
The Good Country Index surveyed and ranked 125 countries by combining 35 separate indicators from the United Nations, the World Bank and other international institutions.
Ireland was the best country in the world, ranking top in both the overall and in the "prosperity and equality" categories, while Libya was the "worst" country in Africa and globally.
Indicators used in the ranking include a country's handling of issues like education, science, war and peace, trade, culture, health, censorship, the environment, freedom, etc.
"Because the biggest challenges facing humanity today are global and border-less," said Anholt, "the index focuses on each country's contribution to the globe rather than its own citizens. Problems such as climate change, economic crisis, terrorism, drug trafficking, slavery, poverty and others stretch across national borders."
Kenya's performance was poorest in the "planet and climate" category (at position 98 globally) despite the UN Environmental Program being headquartered in Nairobi.
Indicators in the survey cannot be measured in a single year, so the data used for the ranking was collected over a period of 10 years with 2010 forming the baseline for the study.
