Bangladesh ranked 8th happiest country

Bangladesh has been ranked as the eighth happiest country, according to the Happy Planet Index (HPI) 2016. The ranking was done among the 140 countries, says news agency UNB.

The ranking, recently released by World Economic Forum, a leading not-for-profit foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, placed Bangladesh as the eighth greenest and happiest country with a total of 38.4 HPI score.

The study, in its 2016 edition, stated “Bangladesh has made substantial progress over the past 25 years in terms of human development. In 2014, Bangladesh was among the top 10 countries worldwide employing people in the renewable energy sector, a necessary effort given the country’s particular vulnerability to climate change.”

“The life expectancy in Bangladesh is almost 20 years higher than in Zimbabwe - despite having a similar GDP per capita. This is a country that’s achieving a lot with limited resources,” the study added.

What is the HPI?

The Happy Planet Index measures what matters: sustainable wellbeing for all. It tells world how well nations are doing at achieving long, happy, sustainable lives. It provides a compass to guide nations, and shows that it is possible to live good lives without costing the Earth.

The formula goes something like this: take the well-being and longevity of a population, measure how equally both are distributed, then set the result against each country's ecological footprint, according to a news agency.

According to Happy Planet Index website, wealthy Western countries, often seen as the standard of success, do not rank highly on the Index. Instead, several countries in Latin America and the Asia Pacific region lead the way by achieving high life expectancy and wellbeing with much smaller Ecological Footprints.