The study used official figures from the United Nations and other international organisations to quantify what each country contributes to the rest of the world and what it takes away, relative to its size.

Simon Anholt, creator of the Good Country Index, told Radio Sweden why Sweden has landed first.

“Sweden ranks very near the top on almost every indicator. It has a double first: it ranks top on two sub-indexes. One for prosperity and equality, and one for its contribution to global health and well-being,” Anholt said.

However, in the category of Peace and Security, Sweden ranked 52nd out of 163 countries. That is still an improvement from the previous index, where it was ranked 111th.

Anholt explains that this is mainly due to Sweden being a weapons exporter, which he sees as a bad thing, and also because when the data was collected for the previous edition of the index Sweden was still fighting in Afghanistan, which brought the figures down.

Anholt’s aim with creating the index is to try and make people think less about how countries perform in terms of their own domestic success and performance.

“This seems to be foolish in the modern age, because we live in a globally connected world. We’re facing gigantic existential problems. And so, clearly, the world needs to start collaborating a lot more and competing a little bit less,” Anholt said.

Radio Swedish International