The Legatum Institute, an independent policy, advisory, and advocacy organization within the Legatum group of companies, released its Prosperity Index 2019 report, consisting of a gauge of prosperity across 167 countries around the globe based on material wealth and personal wellbeing. More specifically, the Legatum Prosperity Index is published on an annual basis and covers twelve parameters in its assessment for each country, namely “Safety & Security”, “Personal Freedom”, “Governance”, “Social Capital”, “Investment Environment”, “Enterprise Conditions”, “Market Access and Infrastructure”, “Economic Quality”, “Living Conditions”, “Health”, “Education”, and “Natural Environment”. The 2019 Legatum Prosperity Index revealed that global prosperity continues to increase, noting that 148 nations have enhanced their prosperity scores since 2009, with the biggest advancements experienced in the Asia-Pacific region over the past 10 years. The report also added that prosperity growth among nations was imbalanced, with the gap between the highest and lowest performers in the index widening since the year 2014. The report mentioned that a country’s prosperity ranking is not solely decided by wealth but is also largely influenced by both economic wealth and social wellbeing.

According to the report, Denmark came in 1^st in the world in the 2019 Prosperity Index, followed by Norway (global rank: 2^nd), Switzerland (global rank: 3^rd), Sweden (global rank: 4^th) and Finland (global rank: 5^th), only to name a few. On the regional level, the report highlighted that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one of only two regions to witness a lower than average improvement in overall prosperity in the past year, with 9 out of 18 countries registering a rise in their prosperity scores since 2018. More specifically, the United Arab Emirates came in first and ranked 40^th in the world, followed by Qatar (regional rank: 2^nd, world rank: 43^rd), Bahrain (regional rank: 3^rd, world rank: 58^th), Oman (regional rank: 4^th, world rank: 60^th) and Kuwait (regional rank: 5^th, world rank: 62^nd) among others. On the local front, Lebanon lost two positions in its overall Prosperity Index ranking when compared to the previous year and was assigned a global rank of 104 in the 2019 Prosperity Index among 167 covered countries and ranked 11^th in the MENA region. In fact, Lebanon lost 14 positions since 2009 and 12 positions since 2014, yet outperformed many of its regional peers such as Algeria (global rank: 110^th, regional rank: 12^th), Iran (global rank: 119^th, regional rank: 13^th), Egypt (global rank: 126^th, regional rank: 14^th), and Iraq (global rank: 142^nd, regional rank: 15^th), only to name a few. As for the Index sub-categories, Lebanon fared best in terms of living conditions (51^st) and enterprise conditions (78^th) but fared worst in terms of social capital (146^th).