The Atlantic Council, an American think tank in the field of International Affairs that aims at fostering international trade, recently released its 2026 Atlas Freedom and Prosperity around the World report where it ranked 164 countries globally in terms of two separate indexes, being the Prosperity Index and the Freedom Index. In details, the Prosperity Index score represents the average score of six equally weighted indicators being Income, Health, Inequality, Environment, Minorities and Education while the Freedom Index score represents the average score of three equally weighted sub-indexes namely the Economic, Legal and Political sub-indexes. The report commented that countries that have balanced freedom pillars promote more equitable and stable prosperity. The report noted, however, that countries with imbalanced freedom pillars tend to aggravate income inequality and have worse minority outcomes.

As far as scores are concerned, European countries dominated both indexes. In details, Nordic countries occupied the first four positions in the Prosperity Index with Norway coming in the first position with a score of 91.6, followed by Iceland (score of 90.1), Denmark (score of 90.0) and Sweden (score of 89.4), noting that all the aforementioned countries enjoyed a “High” level of prosperity. Concerning the Freedom Index, Denmark ranked first (score of 93.8), followed by Luxembourg (score of 92.7), Sweden (score of 91.6), Switzerland (score of 91.4), and Ireland (score of 91.2), with all five countries also enjoying a “High” level of freedom.

Regionally, the United Arab Emirates ranked first in terms of prosperity (score of 80.0, global rank of 35, “High” prosperity), followed by Qatar (score of 76.0, global rank of 45, “Moderate” prosperity) and Kuwait (score of 74.7, global rank of 50, “Moderate” prosperity). As for the freedom index, Jordan occupied the first position regionally (score of 66.7, global rank of 76, “Moderate” freedom), followed by Kuwait (score of 64.1, global rank of 87, “Low” freedom) and Morocco (score of 62.7, global rank of 94, “Low” freedom).

Locally, Lebanon ranked 90^th in the world and 12^th in the MENA region in the Prosperity Index with a score of 64.2 (compared to 62.9 a year earlier) and a “Low” level of prosperity, whilst ranking 133^rd globally and 11^th in the MENA region in the Freedom Index, scoring 46.5 (compared to 49.5 a year before) and positioning under “Lowest” freedom status.