Where in the world?

The good life is a simple matter, says the United Nations.

Long lifespan, decent health, an education and a livable income just about sum it up.

Rating which country offers the best life is a bit more complex, but the UN is up to the task. It involves enough mathematics to fill a couple of blackboards or spreadsheets. But the latest United Nations human development report -- you can see it at http://hdr.undp.org/ -- has a calculator that you can find by following the links.

You'll note that the UN sets little store by warm weather. The top four countries, in order, are Norway, Australia, Iceland and Canada. The bottom four, from worst to fourth-worst, are Niger, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic.

Right in the middle are Belize, China and the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

So what do the Norwegians have that we don't, aside from ski jumps and herring? Kroner, mostly. Norwegians get the edge on Canadians and most of the other front-runners because of their income. The UN calculates purchasing-power parity -- recognizing that the various stages of life cost different amounts in different countries -- and lists the average Norwegian at fifth in the world, at US$53,433. Canada is 16th. No surprise, perhaps, that we are out-earned by the Americans (eighth, at $45,592), but how about the Austrians (14th, $37,370)?

Canadians catch up by living a bit longer than Norwegians and outpointing them in the education index.

Enough, though, of the raw numbers. You can see them all on the web, broken down into every category.

Here's the best, the worst, the middling and some of the factors that may explain their positioning.

1. NORWAY, for the reason already mentioned -- income. It scores .971 on the human development index.

2. AUSTRALIA, with a score of .970. It has one of the world's best education indices. That's a combination of the adult literacy rate and enrolment at schools, colleges and universities.

3. ICELAND, with a score of .969. Income and education are respectable though not spectacular, but their long lifespan lifts Icelanders on the list. With a life expectancy of 81.7 years at birth, they're behind only the Japanese and the people of Hong Kong, which the UN treats, in this report, as distinct from China.

4. CANADA. The Norwegians make more money, the Aussies are more likely to be in school and the Icelanders live longer. But we're well up the list in all the categories the UN rates as important, scoring .966 on the human development index.

At the other end of the list are the world's hellholes. They're poor and uneducated -- those indices march along hand in hand, for obvious reasons, and life is short, largely because of poor or spotty health care and also because of a lack of access to clean water.

The UN's report includes 182 countries. A handful are missing because of a paucity of statistics. They're from both ends of the spectrum. Monaco and San Marino are among the missing. So are Zimbabwe and Somalia.

But of the countries where there are enough statistics to do the UN's calculations, here are the worst of the worst.

182. NIGER. It scores .340 on the index. Much of the country is part of the Sahara Desert and much of the population depends on subsistence agriculture. That makes for a dispersed, rural population, which helps explain Niger's education index, the world's worst at .282. As well, it is 148th among countries whose people have access to an improved water source. In Niger, 58 per cent of the people do not.

181. AFGHANISTAN. It scores .352. NATO countries, with Canada in the forefront, have been improving life in Afghanistan for a decade. Before them, the Soviets spent 10 years in that unhappy land, also striving to improve its lot. And now the U.S., weary of the slow progress of the lesser NATO nations, is going to redouble its efforts. Afghanistan's experience suggests that military occupation and the killing of scumbags, to paraphrase Canada's Gen. Rick Hillier, may not be the road to happiness. Afghanistan's life expectancy index, for scumbags and non-scumbags alike, is .310, the worst on the list. Only Zimbabwe, with a life expectancy of .305 but not enough other statistics to be included in the report, is worse.

180. SIERRA LEONE. It scores .365, with low indices across the board. Now, while the report's grades are based just on income, lifespan and education, it also includes data on gender equity -- how well women do in the pursuit of human development. Naturally, the exclusion of women matches up with poverty -- it's difficult to stamp down on 50 per cent of the population and still have a vibrant economy. There are exceptions, of course. A country floating on a pool of oil, 35th place United Arab Emirates for example, can seemingly afford inequality. But Sierra Leone, low as it is on the scale, also has one of the worst scores for inequality. The UN was able to compare GDI -- gender-related development index -- to human development for 155 countries. Only 14 of them were more imbalanced than Sierra Leone.

179. THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, scoring .369. It's one of 15 countries on the list where purchasing power is less than US$1,000 a year. The CAR's income is $713, far from the worst, which is the Democratic Republic of the Congo at $298. It is also dragged down by life expectancy, which is 46.7 years at birth, the sixth-worst on the list.

91. For comparison's sake, the midpoint is a three-way tie at a score of .772 for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, China and Belize. Belize, in Central America, is elevated by its relatively high life expectancy, 76 years at birth. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in the West Indies, comes in at 71.4 and China averages 72.9. China leads the way in literacy (93.3 per cent of adults) and the education index (.851). Saint Vincent's comparable numbers are 88.1 and .817; Belize's are 75.1 and .762. Saint Vincent, though, has the best annual income of the three, $7,691, compared to China's $5,383 and Belize's $6,734.

buzz.currie@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 25, 2009 B1