The World Happiness Report 2025, released to coincide with the United Nations International Day of Happiness (March 20), aims to reveal a "fascinating" narrative of well-being across the globe, its publishers say.
Mauritius emerged as Africa's happiest nation, overtaking Libya, which ranked highest on the continent last year.
The UN-backed study revealed that Mauritius is followed by Libya, Algeria, and South Africa, with Mozambique finishing the top five ratings for the continent.
According to researchers, the 2025 report shows the impact of caring and sharing as a measure of happiness and satisfaction and draws data from over 140 countries.
Top ten African countries
“Countries are ranked on happiness based on their average life evaluations over the three preceding years, in this case 2022 to 2024,” the report explains.
Gabon, Côte' d'Ivoire, Congo, Guinea and Namibia came in sixth to tenth to make up the top ten happiest countries in Africa.
Researchers asked participants to score their life as a whole, with a particular consideration to factors such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption.
The result, according to researchers, revealed a generally heartening trend: increased kindness and generosity.
Increasing kindness
“For example, when wallets were dropped in the street by researchers, the proportion of returned wallets was far higher than people expected. This is hugely encouraging,” the report said.
This positive shift is particularly significant when contrasted with the report's focus on "deaths of despair," emphasising the importance of combating hopelessness and promoting mental well-being.
“The opposite of happiness is despair, which can lead to death by suicide or substance abuse – also known as ‘deaths of despair’. Fortunately, deaths of this kind are falling in the majority of countries,” the report explained.
However, the report also reveals shifting fortunes, with several African economic powerhouses dropping in the ranking.
The bottom African countries
Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria, fell from its 11th position last year to 19th, falling behind nations such as Gabon (11th) and Côte d'Ivoire (12th). Kenya also fell from its 20th position last year to 25 in the 2025 report.
Many African nations have grappled with a cost-of-living crisis that has sparked protests and political tensions that have escalated into full-blown conflicts in some regions.
At the bottom of the list (in ascending order) are Sierra Leone (146), Malawi (144), Zimbabwe (143), Botswana (142) and conflict-ridden DR Congo (141).
Sudan, gripped by civil war since April 2023, was not evaluated on the list.
Global outlook
The World Happiness Report 2025 also contains a ranking of the world’s happiest countries.
Finland leads the world in happiness for the eighth year in a row, with its citizens reporting an average score of 7.736 (out of 10) when asked to evaluate their lives.
Costa Rica (6th) and Mexico (10th) both enter the top 10 for the first time, while continued upward trends for countries such as Lithuania (16th), Slovenia (19th) and Czechia (20th) underline the convergence of happiness levels between Eastern, Central and Western Europe.
The United States (24th) falls to its lowest-ever position, with the United Kingdom (23rd) reporting its lowest average life evaluation since the 2017 report.
