UN report ranks Afghanistan world's unhappiest country, Lebanon second saddest

Afghanistan people

A report published by the UN on Saturday, ahead of Sunday's International Day of Happiness, found that Afghanistan came last out of 149 countries examined in the survey.

The annual World Happiness report produces its scores based on data from over three years, meaning that the low score for Afghanistan was not a result of the Taliban's return to power last year.

Lebanon, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe rounded out the bottom five least happy countries.

The other end of the spectrum was filled with the usual suspects. Finland ranked happiest for the fourth year in a row, with Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands following up. Germany came 14th place.

The poor showing for Afghanistan is another condemnation of the US-led invasion and twenty-year occupation of the central Asian country.

Despite the billions invested by the international community — with US investment alone reaching $145 billion (€131 billion at today's rate) over the two decades — the country has little to show for it.

The World Happiness report calculated its index for happiness based on six categories: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy at birth, freedom to make life choices, generosity within the population and perceptions of corruption, ranking them from zero to ten.

Afghanistan scored low in all categories — without taking into account the return of the hardline conservative Taliban regime — for a grand total of 2.5 on the scale, compared to Finland's 7.8.