Philippines Takes 24th Spot In World's 'Happiest' Countries Ranking

Philippines, 24th happiest country (Photo: Mylot)

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has released on Thursday its Happy Planet Index (HPI), which ranks the "happiest" countries in the world based upon the health and happiness produced per unit of environmental output.

NEF ranked 151 countries using a global data of life expectancy (LE), experienced well-being (EW) and ecological footprint (EF). Each country's HPI was computed by dividing the product of LE and EW with EF.

The data for experienced well-being is taken from the Gallup World Poll, ‘life expectancy' is based upon the 2011 UNDP Human Development Report and ‘ecological footprint' is calculated from data provided by the WWF.

Costa Rica topped the list with its 64 HPI while Vietnam, which has an HPI of 60.4, ranked 2nd.

Columbia, Belize, El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Guatemala completed the top 10.

Meanwhile, the Philippines scored an HPI of 52.4 and was ranked 24th in the list. The Philippines' low per-capita ecological footprint helped the country score a better HPI than more than 80% of the countries ranked.

The complete ranking can be viewed on the Happy Planet Index website.