It's #63 (#23 on this list), behind Uzbekistan and Guatemala. The US press tends to gleefully report what goes wrong in Venezuela, after years of being teased by Chavez, which is probably why Uzbekistan and Guatemala, and many countries in the Top 20, are less noticed than Venezuela. Also, many rating numbers are so close together that in real terms a whole bunch of nations are as "fragile" as each other.
While Venezuela would score poorly in economic areas, they don't have overpopulation or ethnic/religious conflict. It's not tough to imagine that things will rapidly improve once the Chavistas are gone. The problems in other countries are more intractable. Which is why the situation in Venezuela is so sad. It's entirely self-inflicted.
It is so sad, Venezuela and Lebanon are probably the only countries which have self inflicted their downfall like maybe 5-10 years ago both of these countries would have been nowhere near this list. For example, Lebanon started collapsing economically in October 2019 then covid hit, the currency devalued by 98% and then it was topped off with the Beirut blast which destroyed the port area and destroyed half of the capital Beirut. Same thing for Venezuela in 2014 the government ruined its own country just like Lebanon, so they can profit off the people's suffering. It's so sad that these two countries went through that, and they both are really beautiful countries and deserve better. I pray for better days for both Venezuela and Lebanon.
Really, if Venezuela isn't on this list, the list is silly. Maybe things have gotten worse since the list was compiled, but I don't believe there's a country more fragile than Venezuela that isn't in open civil war.
Two years have passed and Maduro has succeeded in making the country poor enough to appear on the list. I stand by my position that once those clowns are gone, Venezuela will rapidly improve.
It surely makes me feel a certain way when I see gullible comments on South American issues from a clearly poorly informed POV. Maduro is bad, quite bad. But you cannot improve Venezuela by putting a Guaidó or a Corina Machado in power, puppets for the US State Department, financed by US institutions. Those do not mean signs of positive change to Venezuelans, just a different kind of slap on their faces - possibly worse. The difference is that that way you may not have those hindering US sanctions anymore, designed explicitly to pressure the population so much that eventually they want any change to power and prefer to put leeches such as these ones. Tragic perspective, I'd suggest y'all get a better grasp on SA's politics before yapping so much and pointing "clowns" without understanding what the alternatives are.
I went that direction too. I thought those ones with all the a's and u's that are going to be totally underwater in under 50 years surely qualified as "fragile".
So I finally took a look at the actual report: there’s only 178 countries in it, and as far as I can tell, there are no small island nations in the Pacific Basin included, with the exception of the Solomon Islands. I’m guessing it was a matter of not being able to collect enough useful data due to their diminutive sizes.
That was fun! In a depressing sort of way... Nearly missed North Korea because I was thinking largely about government hold on power. Finally broadened my thinking a little bit. Some past experience with UN Peacekeeping made Solomon Islands an easy guess.
Cuba's not all that bad, relatively speaking. It's a very poor country, but that's about it. There isn't much violence. People don't live well by any stretch, but there is no civil unrest or threat of war. There is a lot of national pride too. I think most of us find the government's stronghold over the people upsetting (I certainly do), but a lot of Cubans genuinely believe(d) in Castro and support Communism. Whether that's a consequence of propaganda is a fair question...but I think most countries' citizens are swayed by propaganda. The real exacerbating factor for Cuba is the embargo/blockade, but with relations with the U.S. opening up, there is hope for the future in Cuba. Every nation on this list has a much, much bleaker outlook...
Your ignorance is not bliss! Cubans are literally dying to leave the country. There is plenty of violence, it just does not happen in public. The reason Cuba is not on many "worst of" lists is the government does not release honest figures. In Cuba babies born with any birth defect are murdered, guess what, those murdered children are not calculated into their infant mortality numbers.
Europe in general seems to be doing pretty well all things considered. Most of its countries are at the very bottom of the list. Highest is Russia at #65.
Hey don't worry 2017, we created ethnicity and religion conflicts for all the comparatively developed countries for some reason. Hope you enjoy people rioting & looting, and a two-tiered justice system
Feels like there was too much time. Normally I never would have guessed the Solomon Islands or East Timor over Thailand, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Iran and so on... but there was so much time I managed 100% with 1:23 left through almost random guessing. (well not completely random, skipped over Europe completely now that I think about it- didn't even guess Ukraine or Romania)
I know these guess-a-country quizzes typically are 4 minutes long. But even in most cases that seems like an excessive time limit. When you block out Africa and the huge number of countries that the continent represents, then 4 minutes becomes way too much. Should be 2 minutes, or at most 3, if you're going to exclude an entire continent.
Seconded, especially where, as here, you can safely exclude Europe from consideration. I guessed all of Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and still had time to start thumbing through Oceania. 100% with 0:19 remaining.
Yeah, but if fragility is associated with Africa it would be(and was, for me) difficult to come up with so many fragile countries out of the continent. So I think the amount of time is perfect.
Um...well, these are fragile states. Basically war, violence, flimsy government puts a country on this list. Besides the obvious government, North Korea is one of the most peaceful places on Earth.
Yeah, I don't think North Korea has as much crime as some of the nations on this list. They're not (really) engaged in a military conflict at the moment, despite the fact that the Korean War hasn't ended. But there is starvation in North Korea, so it could come close to being on this list.
While the majority of African countries are near the top, it is worth pointing out 17 of the countries are less fragile than this list, all of those except Tanzania are becoming less fragile, and of the fragile countries in Africa which would be on the list all of them are becoming less fragile too except 5 (Mali, Uganda, Cameroon, Burundi & Chad). I point this out because without this it is easy to continue thinking of Africa as a place with no prospects but it is in fact fast growing, vibrant and increasingly modern.
i tried south sudan, niger, nigeria, mali, mauritania, libya, chad, burkina faso, somalia, mozambique, drc, car and egypt then finally realised the quiz is of countries outside of africa... read the notes!!!!
As a Sri Lankan living abroad, the situation has definitely improved since 2022. It is still terrible, but nothing compares to the state of the country when I last visited it 2 weeks after the former President was forced out in July 2022. The airport was deserted with military guards on every corner, no one had fuel to travel because people had to wait in miles-long lines for gas, and there were mandatory unannounced blackouts several times a week
It always surprises me how Israel seems to never appear in this kind of lists. Looking at the source, they consider Palestine and Israel as separate entities, the first being 34th on the list —so they would be between Pakistan and North Korea— and the later 143rd; I think this should be noted on the quiz somehow. Still, I'd say that's quite a low position for a country inmersed in two wars on its borders, suffering periodical rocket attacks and experiencing lots of political turmoil.
"FFP attempts as much as possible to de-emphasize rankings,as it is our firm belief that a country’s overall score (and indeed, its indicator scores) are a far more important and accurate barometer of a country’s performance, and that as much as countries should be compared against other countries, it is more useful to compare a country against itself, over time. Hence, our analysis focuses more on specific indicator scores or trend lines over time rather than just rankings."
The report is very clear that the comparison between countries doesnt make sense and the purpose its to understand how the countries are getting better or worst through time.
Yes, you don't really think of Turkey as a fragile state. That under slightly different circumstances it would disappear seems untrue. I'm curious what the rationale is.
They considered that Turkeys inflation is one of the worst in the world rn (top 4 worst, at 83% in 2023), 10% of unemployment (very bad, but eswatini unemployment rate was about 30% and they are not at the list, so go figure), 1 in 3 turks live bellow porverty line. Even said that minimal wage is bellow starvation line there.
Quote: "The deterioration of economic trends can be trace back to 2011, slowly building to an economic crisis in 2018 and descending into a fully-fledged depression in 2020, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic"
Also
"Throughout 2022, Türkiye’s already worrying Human Rights record continued to be a concern, with its corresponding FSI score remaining high at 8.0 points in the 2023 Index. Freedom of expression, association, and assembly had already been sharply eroded under the AKP’s rule"
They are also claiming censorship of media under the pretense of stoping fake news. And worsened already high femicide rates and women’s rights overall.
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of these. I was just as curious and read the report and this is what I read (among more information).
And they said that
"FP attempts as much as possible to de-emphasize rankings, as it is our firm belief that a country’s overall score (and indeed, its indicator scores) are a far more important and accurate barometer of a country’s performance, and that as much as countries should be compared against other countries, it is more useful to compare a country against itself, over time."
So they would claim these comparisons dont make sense.
I'm personally not very confident on the report, but I'm still open to it.
I am surprised israel isnt on here sure they are not poor but stable? You can't tell me that country has ever been stable. (I am not saying who is wrong or right there just that it has never been stable)
Quite easy to score at least 4 points. Most of them are countries which value their sovereignty and refuse to bow to the interests of American imperialism. As a result, the imperialist bully starves off the dignified people in the name of sanctions
About Russia they claim that lack of transparency, lack of openness and fairness of the political process, elections not being perceived as fair, lots of political violance gave them a terrible score. They also claim problems with security like private militias and paramilitary activity and powerful factionalized elites all are a problems that would sharply raise their scores (the bigger the score the worst).
They claim that "In a highly interconnected world, pressures on one fragile state can have serious repercussions not only for that state and its people, but also for its neighbors and other states halfway across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of states have erupted into mass violence stemming from internal conflict."
So I dont think this is about how fragil or stable the actual people in power are but their society.
Btw I'm not defending the report. I think there are lots of shenanigans there. I'm just comenting on what I read bc I was also curious
And missed one very obvious one near the USA. Nice quiz.
The report is very clear that the comparison between countries doesnt make sense and the purpose its to understand how the countries are getting better or worst through time.
I also feel there is a bit of shenanigans here
Quote: "The deterioration of economic trends can be trace back to 2011, slowly building to an economic crisis in 2018 and descending into a fully-fledged depression in 2020, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic"
Also
"Throughout 2022, Türkiye’s already worrying Human Rights record continued to be a concern, with its corresponding FSI score remaining high at 8.0 points in the 2023 Index. Freedom of expression, association, and assembly had already been sharply eroded under the AKP’s rule"
They are also claiming censorship of media under the pretense of stoping fake news. And worsened already high femicide rates and women’s rights overall.
And they said that
"FP attempts as much as possible to de-emphasize rankings, as it is our firm belief that a country’s overall score (and indeed, its indicator scores) are a far more important and accurate barometer of a country’s performance, and that as much as countries should be compared against other countries, it is more useful to compare a country against itself, over time."
So they would claim these comparisons dont make sense.
I'm personally not very confident on the report, but I'm still open to it.
They claim that "In a highly interconnected world, pressures on one fragile state can have serious repercussions not only for that state and its people, but also for its neighbors and other states halfway across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of states have erupted into mass violence stemming from internal conflict."
So I dont think this is about how fragil or stable the actual people in power are but their society.
Btw I'm not defending the report. I think there are lots of shenanigans there. I'm just comenting on what I read bc I was also curious