I don’t know.
Any country that boasts a “King Zog” in its history is a place that definitely has hope for the future
I used to live in Niger, admittedly some years ago, and it’s not that bad. It’s a matter of perspective. From an American perspective, it’s pretty dry, bleak, and poor, but if it’s home to you, of course it doesn’t seem so bad. They’ve had some problems over the years with rebellion and drought, but at the moment things seem okay. They’ve actually had some success with reforestation recently, according to the NY Times.
To me the worst countries are the ones suffering from all the usual problems, plus a disastrous political system or war or epidemic. Zimbabwe is certainly pretty near the top, with a vicious government that has deliberately destroyed the economy, and a catastrophic AIDS epidemic. Sudan is only partially terrible – Darfur is bad, but the rest of the country is riding high, relatively speaking, on new oil wealth.
Liberia has begun to pick itself up, but like Central Africa, the damage done to society by the recent wars is staggering. Central Africa lost around four million people in the late '90s and early 2000s. Even with some measure of political stability, it’s hard to easily overcome losses like that.
Then there are countries like Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, where it’s really hard to imagine what could ever be done to put them right, except by letting everyone leave.
Well we don’t especially trust them either. Especially given the fact that it has attempted to impose Sharia law on the South of the country, launched a brutal and oppresive war against its Christian and animist minorities that live in the South, has next to zero religious or political freedom, still has the death penalty for the crime of conversion away from Islam, enslaved children from the South for use as sex slaves/military cannon fodder, at least tacitly supported barbarous attacks on the civilian population of Darfur.
Whatchoo talkin’?! They got parades! Don’t you like parades?! 
Colombia is a country club compared to most places mentioned thus far.
For some people it is, but Colombia is plagued by an intractable Marxist insurgency, right-wing death squads, hyperviolent cocaine cartels, and the highest murder rate in the world. On the plus side of the ledger, it has Juan Valdez.
While they’re haven’t got striking political problems, I’ve never been entirely sure how these various pacific island chain countries are going to build their economies. When leasing out your domain name (Tuvalu - .tv) is a substantial part of your GDP, you haven’t got much hope. They’ll also be the worse victims of global warming.
The murder rate is pretty high, but it doesn’t beat South Africa. And according to this table, the murder rate has been cut in half since 2002. Also note that about 85 countries can’t even be bothered to keep track of their murder rate.
Also note, from this table that if you don’t really care how you die, Colombia has a higher life expectancy than over 100 other countries.
Guerilla activity is off sharply in the last 5 years, 1/3 of the coca crop has been torched, and there are now government security forces present in every department. Couple that with 95% literacy and the second lowest corruption index in South America (behind those boy scouts in Chile), and you have a country on the rise.
I’m not saying it’s Monaco, but I do believe the average Colombian has it better than the average African. I can’t agree with you that the country is doomed.
Okay, I take your point. And honestly, if Colombia can lift itself from the mire, that ought to give us hope for the future of everyone else.
But do they need to “build their economies” so much? They’re never going to be big global players, but as long as people can make a living and feed themselves, Pacific islands don’t strike me as such a terrible place to life. And FWIW, most Pacific island tide gauges have shown no increase in sea level, and in many cases an actual decrease, over the past 20-30 years. No idea why that might be (I’m not an AGW non-beliver, just find it odd).
You think he ever said, “Kneel before Zog!”?
Does not belong on this list. Cheap beer, plenty of food, friendly people, an overwhelming laid back lifestyle, decent beaches and no war in memory makes this a pretty decent place. Though there are problems, I dare say people here are a good bit happier than people at home. Yes, people are poor. But here you can still have a life- a family, recreation, etc.- even if you are poor. The only places I see people way at a disadvantage happiness-wise is health care and women’s rights.
However, people have been hearing their whole lives that they are “poor” and “miserable” and they are apt to repeat these things. I can’t tell you how many kids have told me in school “Madame, I am African, I cannot learn.” or “I live in a poor country, I cannot suceed”. The first step towards making some of these places a little better is to stop regarding them all as undifferentiated hellholes and start bringing our business, thoughts (how many of you learned much of anything about Africa in school?) and a bit of our energy there.
I hope so.
Thank you for your response of this nature. It’s interesting to hear things aren’t so bad as people think. I had a similar shock with the Philippines, where I imagined wall-to-wall shantytowns and Smokey Mountain. Gleaming skyscrapers and modern shopping malls just didn’t occur to me.
Before I went to Manila, we went to Tijuana… talk about places living UP to their reputations.
Some time ago I was in a top level commercial/governmental meeting in Khartoum and the lowest status guy literally sat at my feet. He was a Nubian from the South.
The interesting thing was that the two smartest (least crooked and most objective orientated) individuals were quietly talking to each other while the rest were conducting a moderately civilized display of peacock feathers.
It was only one instance, but it is first hand, that Southern ‘Sex Slave’ was as smart as mustard - and darn good at sussing and keeping up a running commentary. What fascinated me was that it was a ‘set up’, somebody very smart had arranged things.
I would be inclined to give The Sudan a blanket Ok, on very little evidence, but I met some smart people out there - and I’ve a bit more than I said above.
Potential future basket case = Yemen.
-Population growth at twice the rate of GDP.
-GDP is only as high as it is because of oil production. Oil production is in decline.
-Corruption is rampant. There have been many businesses who have expressed interest in setting up operations, but once they realize the actual cost, including having partners that neither contribute to cost of operations, nor have any guarantee that they won’t take over once the business is running successfully, give up and go home (the lucky ones do, at least).
-Unrest in the north parts of the country between government and tribes. The tribes are as well armed as the government troops.
-The production of wheat, rice, and coffee (exportable commodities) are being replaced by the production of Ghat (Qat). Ghat is produced locally for only local markets as it is illegal almost everywhere else on the planet. It takes up much of a person’s monthly income and most people in Yemen use it.
I don’t hold up much hope for the future.
Botswana is a well-run, stable and relatively wealthy country (GDP per head is something like 11,000 dollars) with one major drawback - an absolutely horrendous HIV problem. The life expectancy is now down to the mid-thirties. The country has little debt, with currency reserves to spare and is attempting to combat the HIV menace. I wish them well.
The worst, most dreadful country? Achy Breaky Heart. :eek:
How is Nauru doing?
I remember listing to a great This American Life episode on the tiny island nation. I have a hard time telling form a WIKI article exactly how well an island nation is doing but it looks like they had some failed promises with China and if you listened to the show you will remember that they had some similar problems with the US. I think it is with the time to listen to the show.
FWIW, around here Chad and Niger have the worst reputions. The Chadian presidential palace actually looks out over Cameroon, because it is that much better. I’ve met Westerners living in Chad who thought that our dinky little provincial capital was the capital of all of Cameroon because N’Jamena is that underdeveloped.
Guinea sucks pretty bad. People are good, but even when they arn’t at war, the place is seriously lacking in infrastructure and the government has some pretty deep flaws. Plus, the beer sucks there.
I gotta go with either an active war zone or North Korea. Even is a desperately poor backwater country, you can have a decent life. You can have your family, your home, your fields, your culture, etc. The details (mud hut versus mansion, donkey cart versus Lexus) don’t really make nearly as much difference as we think they would. I could honestly move in to a mud hut tomorrow and my quality of life would not really go down.
It’s when home and family and culture get torn apart that life actually starts to suck.