Qatar has ranked 110th out of 125 nations around the world in a new report that measures global contributions to society.
That puts it in the same company as Algeria, Mongolia, Iran and the Philippines, according to the Good Country Index, which was spearheaded by British policy advisor Simon Anholt.
The report states that the Gulf nation ranks poorly in many of the seven main indicators, including:
- World order, which entails refugees hosted, UN treaties signed and charitable donations (118th);
- Science and technology, in terms of Nobel prizes, patents, and international students and publications (112th); and
- Culture, including creative goods and services exports, visa restrictions and press freedom (95th).
Qatar fared better in categories such as international peace and security (50th); prosperity and equality (68th); and health and wellbeing (78th).
But in terms of its ranking, the country came in last among its GCC peers, though all held relatively low positions on the index. The UAE was 87th, followed by Saudi Arabia (92nd), Kuwait (93rd) and Oman (100th). Bahrain was not listed.
In a statement on its website, the study’s authors explained the rationale for their report, arguing that challenges like climate change, drug trafficking, poverty and food/water shortages are borderless, and require international effort to tackle. They continued:
“The trouble is, most countries carry on behaving as if they were islands, focusing on developing domestic solutions to domestic problems. We’ll never get anywhere unless we start to change this habit.
The Good Country Index isn’t interested in how well countries are doing, it’s interested in how much they are doing.”
For Qatar to improve its rankings, it would have to work harder at reducing emissions, tackling drug trafficking and developing its knowledge economy.
However, the Gulf country did get points for the amount of food aid it has contributed abroad and internet security efforts.
Caveats
There are caveats to the report’s conclusions. For one, the data the authors collected do not all come from the same time period. Much of it involves 2010 figures, which is almost half a decade ago.
Additionally, the index does not look at what’s going on inside a country – which is why Egypt, for example, ranks highly in the peace and security category. On its website, the authors say:
“The fact that domestic behaviour isn’t included in the Good Country Index of course doesn’t mean we excuse, condone, minimise or overlook it in any way: it’s simply not the thing that we’re measuring.
Remember that when we talk about a ‘good country’ we’re not attempting to judge its overall moral standing: we’re measuring its impact on the rest of the world, its contribution to the common good. You can’t get a complete picture of any country without considering both domestic and international factors, and we would always encourage people to consider the Good Country Index scores alongside some reliable measures of domestic behaviour.”
Thoughts?
Bloody racist British again!
Will our jealousy of Qatar never end!
LOL.. – Good one!
All surveys are racist (unless they rank Qatar in the top 10).
How can I buyout this rating agency??
hahahahhahaha
Good, good; admitting you have a problem is the 1st step :p
Interesting how all these studies often seem to have the same countries near the top if they’re measuring something generally seen as positive. They all seem to be smaller, open, western democracies like Denmark or New Zealand. I wonder what else they have in common…
Apart from butter.
9 out of top 10 are European (no not just EU), 16 out of top 20 are European (Is Iceland part of Europe????) Seems to be a little bias there 😉
Lol, USA ranks 114th for International Peace and Security…. yup that seems about right. I retract my statement about bias 😉
So what is the bias exactly? Or (more likely) does it just happen to be measuring things these countries are good at?
Its called Inherent Bias. Basically, designing a survey without taking all the underlying influencing factors into account. Sometimes it might even be Systemic Bias, based on the cultural background of the person or persons designing the survey.
As 9/10 ranked countries come from a particular geographic region leads one to question whether or not there is an underlying inherent bias in the metric being used. This is further reinforced by the notion that the 10th country is one that has developed by colonisation from the aforementioned geographic region.
If one then looks at the top 20 countries, they are all colonised / settled by people originating from the same geographic region. Expanding this to the top 25, only 1 of those does not have significant number of people sourced from the Western European geographical region. Costa Rica and Chile both were settled by the Spanish and have significant population groupings showing European ancestry.
Ergo, based on this I would suggest that there is a form of inherent bias in the survey.
Good enough for you?
Not really. I am fully aware of the concept of inherent bias but knowing it can exist doesn’t in itself provide evidence of it. You can (and should) question the validity of the survey but this in itself should not lead us to conclude by default that the survey is not valid. It may be there are other factors that have made these countries “successful” in the terms of the survey. A number of countries that are not in the top 25 were also colonised (though perhaps not as extensively settled) by (only some of) these countries. Does this prove anything? Unless there is some way of showing that the bias definitively has occurred in this survey and that other equally valid reasons are definitely not the reason for the results then I see no reason to dismiss it so categorically. To me it is just a bunch of numbers that can be interpreted as the observer sees fit. Not everything in the world is always going to be so loaded.
There’s also a number of European countries that are not in the top 25. Does this really tell us anything about bias either?
It does indeed. If you look carefully, those are either former so-called Eastern-block countries, or Southern European countries. This reinforces the impression of bias towards northern and western European norms as the basis of the survey.
So the bias is geographical or the results are geographical. I’m even more confused. Does this really tell us anything. Some southern European countries were major colonizers (e.g.Portugal 35th). Does colonization automatically equal bias and bias automatically equal success in this survey. Again to me it is just a bunch of measures that certain countries do well at. Most of these are northern european. Most of them seem to be small. Isn’t that just the results or is there some sort of conspiracy I’m not aware of?
It means there is inherent bias in the survey towards the norms of (north) western Europe… You got there in the end, well done!
So if the Netherlands wins the World Cup it means there is a bias towards small cheese eating north european countries in football tournaments played near the Amazon jungle. Yes – I see your logic clearly now.
No, it means they played better than the other team, or won more Oscars for Performing Arts: Diving category. Anecdotally, it may mean that eating cheese makes you a better footballer.
Hup Holland! 🙂
Hup Holland Hup!
*impression = key word?
“Seems to be a little bias there ;-)” My very first comment mate… Says it all, impression of bias…
Some of these measures are very clear numbers too. I struggle to see how Nobel prizes or patents per head of population can have a cultural bias to it.
How do Japan (25th) and Singapore (27th) fit into this? One colonized and the other not. European cultural bias?
“Expanding this to the top 25, only 1 of those does not have significant number of people sourced from the Western European geographical region.” See response above 😉
i was taking this index seriously and then i saw this
“Egypt, for example, ranks highly in the peace and security category”
To understand the ratings, you should watch the TED show, it is not about what the country is doing to its people but rather to the world.
The reason for that is explained just above the line you quoted – they don’t look at what’s going on inside the country. I am more surprised to see that Egypt has contributed more towards science than China. Must have missed all the important inventions and patents that happened there!
A pretty poor study, if this was a phd student they would fail.
Qatar is only interested in helping Qataris, if they were interested in helping other humans they would have granted the Palestinian refugees who have been here for generations citizenship now, instead they just add to their misery.
Being country specific is not unique to Qatar and is the norm rather than the exception.
“Qatar is only interested in helping Qataris”
your forgetting all the charity qatar does gives in africa and asia
Buying influence. Maybe some do it for altruistic reasons, but mainly government buying influence. All rich nations do it.
I appreciate your point and generally agree, but ROTA is for real, particularly in terms of health and education.
I think there’s a certain level of pessimism in all of MIMH’s posts
possibly although i think in qatars case the aim of much of the charity is improving qatars image, rather then buying influence. especially when it often given to countries that have little to nothing we need
You haven’t explained why it is a “poor study”. Is it even a “study”? It looks more just like a survey using a particular methodology that is left to the user to interpret.
lol Israel was ranked 37th, Seriously?!
Yep, should be near the bottom. Poor, poor report.
Being friends with the US has it’s perks I guess.
Although I would not call Israel a “good country” if you look at the methodology it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Their ranking is close to Ghana and Mauritius so not exactly at the top. They rank very high on science & technology which is not surprising given their research universities and the number of nobel prizes they win. This one factor would push them up quite a bit. Just because we may not like it and we may not agree with the methodology does not mean it is inherently “wrong”.
It’s not a matter of liking or agreeing with the methodology; it’s a question inherent bias, both cultural and otherwise.
That’s a feasible argument but to be credible you’d have to substantiate that somehow with some sort of evidence other than just saying it is inherently biased. Just because a survey is done in a particular place or by people of a particular nationality, culture or ethnicity does not mean that it must always be inherently biased – unless of course you question the idea that something can ever be objective.
I am not saying that it is not biased but I’d need more evidence to be convinced.
its not the detail of the survey thats a worry, even if it is 10% out Qatar is still at the wrong end, of where it should aspire to be – so use this as a benchmark and target better. There will always be adverse news, its showing a response and improvement which I would like to see of the country in which I live.
The good people of the state of Qatar should take a critical look at the Human Right of the migrant workers in the country and improve on it, I strongly believe that if this is done, the name of Qatar wil rub shoulders with the so called UK and USA and there will be no room for any negative ideas or writing about Qatar and that wil go a long way to sell the beauty of Qatar which includes the culture and it’s true values to the rest of the World.
The only decent and valuable comment so far.
Who wrote this article? a child? the information here is so questionable
Please explain. To me it just looks like a bunch of measures. Nothing particularly surprising. Things like prosperity, equality, science & technology etc. it doesn’t surprise me in the least which countries are at the top. What exactly were you expecting? Congo to top the health & wellbeing measures?