The Legatum Institute, a London-base company, released its annual Prosperity Index on the 29th of November. The Index™ offers a unique insight into how prosperity is forming and changing across the world. The index ranks 149 countries in terms of their prosperity.
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The Prosperity Index provides insight into why some countries have seen their prosperity rise, why some have seen it fall, and why some have stagnated. Here we highlight ten Key Findings, exploring some of prosperity’s biggest winners and losers, the trends in global prosperity, and its distribution within and between countries.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the weakest-performing region in the world, as it has been since 2007. Nonetheless overall Sub-Saharan African prosperity grew considerably this year.
In the last year, 21 countries in the region have increased their Prosperity, while 19 have seen it decrease.
Although Sub-Saharan Africa performs most strongly relative to the rest of the world in the Natural Environment pillar, the region is still a long way behind others in pillars such as Education and Health. In Education, it is the weakest performing region in 10 out of 12 indicators. In Health, it is last in six out of 12 indicators.
Safety and Security is the pillar that has declined the most in the last year. This is led by Niger, South Africa and Congo , but 31 others have also seen a decline, due in part to increased battlefield deaths. For example, in Niger , there were an estimated 274 deaths caused by conflict with Islamic State.
Methodology
Prosperity may mostly be used to talk about money, but the Legatum Institute thinks there is more to it than that.
The institute takes into account 104 different variables, ranging from indicators like a country’s unemployment rate to asking citizens about how much political freedom they feel they have.
The data is then broken down into nine subindexes — Economic Quality, business environment, Governance, Education, Health, Safety $ security, Personal freedom, Social capital and Natural environment. Each one is given a score and the prosperity of countries is calculated.
Here We’ve taken the Top 20 and bottom 20 (ranked from bottom to top) prosperous countries in Africa from the Legatum Institute’s index and formed a listicle.
Top 20 Most Prosperous Countries In Africa – 2017
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1. Mauritius
In the overall Prosperity Index rankings, Mauritius fell by 4 positions from 30 to 34 when compared to last year.
They are the most prosperous country in Africa.
2. South Africa
South Africa fell by 4 positions from 48 to 52 when compared to last year.
In the pillar ranking, South Africa performed best on Personal Freedom and Business Environment and scores lowest on the Safety Security pillar.
The country us the second most prosperous country in Africa after mauritius..
3. Botswana
In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, Botswana performs best on Governance and Natural Environment and scores lowest on the Social Capital pillar.
4. Namibia 117
Namibia fell by 2 positions from 68 to 70 when compared to last year.
In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, Namibia performed best in Governance and Personal Freedom.
5. Ghana
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In Ghana The biggest positive change, compared to last year, came in Social Capital increasing by 39 places, whereas they dropped 8 places on Safety & Security.
Ghana is the most prosperous country in West African
6. Rwanda
In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, Rwanda performed best in Business Environment and Governance and scores lowest in the Education pillar.
The country is the most prosperous country in East Africa.
7. Tunisia
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In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, Tunisia performs best on Governance and Health and scores lowest on the Personal Freedom pillar.
8. Morocco
In this years ranking, Morocco performed best in Safety & Security and Natural Environment. The biggest positive change, compared to last year, came in Natural Environment.
9. Kenya
In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, Kenya performed best in Social Capital and Business Environment and scores lowest in the Safety & Security pillar.
10. Zambia
In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, Zambia performed best on Social Capital and Business Environment and scores lowest on the Economic Quality pillar.
11. Tanzania
12. Senegal 136
13. Malawi
14. Djibouti
15. Burkina Faso
16. Lesotho
17. Uganda
18. Algeria
19. Zimbabwe
20. Benin
Top 20 Least Prosperous Countries In Africa – 2017
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The least prosperous country in Africa is Central African Republic, followed by chad and Sudan respectively. Africa’s giant Nigeria also made the list of the Top 20 Least Prosperous Countries In Africa – 2017
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