Business

Norway at the top of UN list of best countries to live in
by Zuzana Zelenakova

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) index the most ideal place for living in the world is Norway. Second and third place was taken by Australia and Iceland. The rest of the countries in the top ten are Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Japan. At the opposite end of the list you can find states of sub-Saharan Africa that are constantly struggling with famine, Aids and war conflicts. The worst living standards are in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Niger. The UNDP index was put together using data from year 2007 focusing on categories such as GDP per capita, life expectancy and level of education. “Despite significant! improvements over time, progress has been uneven,“ says official UNDP statement. “Many countries have experienced setbacks over recent decades, in the face of economic downturns, conflict-related crises and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and this was even before the impact of the global economic crisis was felt.“ When we compare countries that ended up as the worst and the best, life expectancy in Niger was 50 years while in Norway 80 years. Also, for every dollar a person from Niger earns, Norwegian earns $85 dollars. The highest average life expectancy was reported in Japan, 82.7 years, while in Afghanistan torn apart by never-ending war conflicts it was only 43.6 years. The highest GDP is in tiny Lichtenstein, $85,383. The country with the lowest yearly income per person is the Democratic Republic of Congo with $298. Countries that climbed up the ladder as compared to the previous year were China, France and Latin America´s trio Venezuela, Peru and Colomb! ia. The UNDP index is published annually since 1990 and Norway! got to the number one spot every year since 2001 with the exceptions of 2008 and 2007 when Iceland made it to the top.

related story (sgx15560): http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091005/lf_afp/undevelopmentpov...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:03 PM