The Good Country Index measures how much each of 125 countries contributes to the planet. Announced at the TEDSalon in Berlin last year, the Index features some unexpected winners — and even more surprising losers.
Ireland tops the list as the “goodest” country in the world. According to Simon Anholt, who’s spent the past two years compiling an index to determine which of 125 countries contributes the most to the common, global good, Norway is the 8th goodest country. The country tops in science and technology, and health and well being categories.
There are 125 country balance sheets graded across seven categories, including things like science and technology, world order, prosperity and equality and health and wellbeing. Each of those seven has got five datasets in them. Take for example world order. That includes five data sets representing things like how much each country gives in charity and overseas development, its population growth, and its status of ratification and signatories of UN treaties.
– To cut a long story short, I discovered the thing people most admired is the perception that a country is good. That turned out to be much more important than the perception they’re rich or beautiful or powerful or modern or anything like that. So then I wanted to know which countries are perceived to contribute the most to humanity — and which countries actually are good, says Anholt to TED.
