Sri Lanka moves up to 61st in global ‘Prosperity Index’

Thursday, 5 November 2015 01:20 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka has risen a notch higher this year and ranked 61st globally in the 2015 Legatum Prosperity Index, which ranks nations according to wealth and wellbeing of their people.

This year’s Prosperity Index, compiled by London-based Legatum Institute, ranks 142 nations on their performance across eight equally-weighted sub-indices: Economy, Entrepreneurship & Opportunity; Governance; Education; Health; Safety & Security; Personal Freedom and Social Capital.

Sri Lanka’s best performance is in the Social Capital sub-index, where it ranks 32nd in 2015.

However, despite the end of the civil war with the Tamil Tiger terrorists six years ago, the country has not felt safe. The lowest rank is in the Safety & Security sub-index, where it ranks 113th in 2015 although the rank improved from the 120th last year.

Sri Lanka’s Economy improved five notches to rank at 65h globally this year from the 76th in 2014 and the Health improved a notch to rank at 77th.

Despite a low inflation rate and unemployment only 63.2% people are satisfied with the living standards and only 56.5% had access to adequate food and shelter, nearly 14% below the global average of 70.4%

Education sub-index improved to the 59th places from the last year’s 66th place ranking with 85.6% people saying they are satisfied with the quality of education.

In Governance, Sri Lanka ranked at 58th place with 87.5% people had confidence in national government and 88.1% had confidence in the judicial system while 93.4% had confidence in the military.

In other categories, the country ranked 85th in Entrepreneurship & Opportunity, 32nd in Social Capital, and 43rd in Personal Freedom.

Globally Norway led the overall rankings for the seventh year followed by Switzerland, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden, rounding up the top five in that order.

In the South Asian region, in 2015, India improved to 99th and Bangladesh improved a notch to 103rd. Nepal improved seven notches to rank at 89th and Pakistan dropped in ranking to 130th while Afghanistan ranked in the bottom at 141st.