Balkans Rank Midway in Social Progress League

A new report rates Western Balkan countries midway in the world when it comes to quality of life and social progress.

The Social Progress Index 2014 Report rated a total of 132 countries using more than 50 indicators.

Croatia came top in the region in 36th position - one place behind Greece, in 35th place. Serbia came next, in 41st place, followed by Bulgaria, in 44th position and Albania, in 48th place.

Macedonia came afterwards at 49, Romania, 51, Montenegro, 53, while Bosnia and Herzegovina trailed in 61st place. Kosovo was not included in the survey.

The report published on April 1 was done by the non-profit organization Social Progress Imperative, based on various indicators such as health, safety, education and inclusion.

Itasked questions such as whether a country satisfied its people's basic needs and whether it had the infrastructure and capacity to allow its citizens to improve the quality of their lives and reach their full potential.

The top three countries in the world in terms of social progress are New Zealand, Switzerland, and Iceland.

The remainder of the top ten includes a group of Northern European nations - The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark - as well as Canada and Australia.

A second tier of countries that includes a group of 13 countries that are world’s leading economies in terms of GDP and population, including Germany, Britain, Japan, the United States and France.

The main finding of the report are that the social progress does not directly follows economic growth, but that there are “striking differences across countries in their social performance”.

Among regions, Europe, North America, and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) are the best...