World's Most Exciting Cities 2018

What’s the greatest city in the world? It’s a hotly contested title – but after asking 15,000 people all over the world, Time Out England Limited came up with a pretty convincing answer. They quizzed thousands of urbanites for this year’s Time Out City Life Index, and scored 32 cities on criteria such as food, drink, culture, friendliness, affordability, happiness and liveability. Here’s the final ranking: the most exciting cities in the world to live in and visit in 2018.

Business Languages in Africa

 

Source:  Corporate Council on Africa

World’s Most Business-friendly Countries

Doing Business measures aspects of business regulation and their implications for firm establishment and operations. It does not include all the issues that are relevant for businesses’ decisions, but it does cover important areas that are under the control of policy makers. Governments worldwide recognize the economic and political benefits of improved business regulation. (Maps of the World)

 New Zealand is the number one country in terms of ease of doing business. The country, which has retained the number one spot, has a favorable business climate and a regulatory environment that is good to start or run an organization. New Zealand is also placed at the top in starting a business, getting credit, and registering property.
 
Singapore was placed second in the World Bank’s 2018 Doing Business Report. Singapore is a great destination to do business and has a conducive business environment. The European nation of Denmark is placed at the third spot. The nation, which has a favorable business environment, has seen massive investments being made by foreign companies in recent years. One of these is Bristol-Myers Squibb, which is a leading American pharmaceutical firm. The other countries and regions among the top 10 in the World Bank’s 2018 Doing Business Report were South Korea, Hong Kong (China), United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Georgia, and Sweden.

China, which is the second largest economy by nominal GDP, was placed at the 78th spot among the nations in terms of ease of doing business. In contrast, Taiwan (China), occupied the 15th spot. India, which is an emerging superpower, occupied the 100th spot. Last year, it was placed at the 130th spot. Australia, Canada, Germany, and France occupied the 14th, 18th, 20th and 31st position respectively.

Placed at the bottom ten are Somalia, Eritrea, Venezuela, South Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Haiti.
Source: World Bank Doing Business Report

Social Progress Index 2017

The Social Progress Index (SPI) defines social progress as the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential. Improving quality of life is a complex and multilayered endeavor, and past efforts to measure progress simply haven’t created a sufficiently nuanced picture of what a healthy society looks like. The SPI score is an average across scores for the three broad dimensions: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well being, and Opportunity.

 

While much of northern Europe continues to provide affordable healthcare, promote equality, and minimize poverty rates, across the Atlantic the US is getting more divided and less tolerant. Compared to other countries with similar GDP, the US is lagging in its homicide rates, terrorism, and its traffic deaths. (Business Insider)

Hungary and Nicaragua are among nine countries that have shown the biggest declines in overall social progress, the study found, and are doing worse since the index was first done in 2014. The SPI team notes that achieving positive change is harder for the wealthier, top-ranked countries. Small improvements in low- or middle-income countries can produce large gains in the SPI ranking. Many of the world’s wealthiest countries, including the U.S., China, France and Russia, are barely improving in the index. 

Source: Social Progress Imperative