Best Countries Ranking Report

US News and World Report, an American media company, released Best Countries 2022 ranking recently.

What is US News and World Report’s Best Countries 2022 ranking

The Best Countries 2022 ranking evaluated 85 countries across 73 attributes, which are categorized into 10 sub-categories, including adventure, agility, entrepreneurship, open for business, social purpose and quality of life.

The 85 countries were chosen based on 4 benchmarks:

1. Top 100 countries with high GDP
2. High FDI inflows
3. international tourism arrivals between 2016 and 2020
4. Top 150 countries in the UN Human Development Index between 2015 and 2019

The report is a joint endeavour of US News and World Report, BAV Group and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The ranking is based on the survey of experts, business leaders and global citizens.

The 2022 survey took into consideration the on-going war in Ukraine, fear of inflation and economic decline, aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic, female leadership and global leadership. The highest weightage of 14.52 per cent is given to the “quality of life” parameter, having sub-categories like good job market, affordable, economically stable, family-friendly, income equality, politically stable, and safe public education.

How did India perform in this report?

• India was ranked at 31^st position among 85 countries.
• Under the open-to-business sub-category, India scored 100 per cent in having cheapest manufacturing cost.
• Its scores in other sub-categories were low:

1. In the favourable tax environment, it scored 16.2 out of 100
2. In the non-corrupt category, the score was 18.1
3. In the transparent government policies, it scored just 3.5.

• India’s overall score in open-to-business category is 37
• Under the quality of life segment, India scored:

1. 9 in income equality
2. 3 in safe
3. 3 in well-developed public health system
4. 9 in economically stable

How did the other countries perform?

• In the overall ranking, Switzerland is the top performer, followed by Germany, Canada, the United States and Sweden.
• The US had topped in several sub-categories like power and agility rankings. It held 2^nd position for entrepreneurship and third for cultural influence.
• Among the top 50 performers, Russia (36^th rank) witnessed a significant decline by 12 per cent.
• The worst performers in the ranking are Belarus (85^th rank), Uzbekistan (84^th rank) and Iran (83^rd rank)
• The rankings of Russia’s three allies – Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – fell to around 10 places each.