It takes a lot to kick a dying ailing man in the guts as he is already agonizing on the floor, but nobody wants to do it to poor old Uncle Sam, do they? And that’s despite the fact that the government in the US is inefficient and that economic development leaves a lot to be desired, these days. Even the World Economic Forum increased the ranking for the USA from 5^th in 2013 in the world to 3^rd position in 2014. Either the USA is giving some back-handed greenbacks to the committee or they really are not looking into things as well as they should be. What’s the US got to sing praises for these days in terms of economic ranking? We can only imagine that they will increase yet again in this year’s rankings once they get released if it is only for the greatest pleasure and most-intellectual masturbation of the elitist decision-makers in the country. The USA is at the top of the roost, isn’t it?

The World Economic Forum judges each country in the world according to a set of criteria that determine the productivity of a country and its ability to be competitive. Of course, the whole concept of competitiveness is a western-world set of values, isn’t it? Just like democracy, which has to be exported to all and sundry, whether they want or need it in their states, the liberal concept of economic activity has to be exported to the rest of the world. If you don’t, then you are going to be downgraded and dumped into the abysses of the rankings in the world. Who wants to come out last or get given the wooden spoon in the race towards that big dollar sign in the sky? Nobody. Not even those that don’t want liberal economies.

Either you are an efficiency-driven economy according to the World Economic Forum that highlights the basic need of improving economic output and heightening efficiency of production (which basically means getting people to work more for less and at the same time produce more for the customer just as long as the latter agree to pay exorbitant sums of money); or you are a factor-driven economy, which is bad because they are the least developed and they can only afford to pay cheap labor a pittance and they sell of their natural resources (in abundance to the efficiency-driven economies). Whoever said economics was hard to understand? The third category of the World Economic Forum is those countries that are called innovation-driven economies. Those are the western-world nations that have managed to invent and innovate new ways of exploiting the previous two categories at will and in depth. Apparently, any country that is not in one of these three categories does not, will not and cannot exist according to the World Economic Forum. In its own words theWEF is “committed to improving the state of the word through public-private cooperation”.

Of course, how do we measure competitiveness and economic development at the WEF? Simply by taking a look at Gross Domestic Product. There are 12 metrics that are called ‘pillars’, the foundations, as it were, of economic stability and growth; that of which is the core of economic activity and competitiveness.  These driving forces in the economy include education and government institutions, infrastructure and communications networks. The way in which the money that is generated in society and is then redistributed is also taken into account.

Of course, the downside is that traditionally and according to statistics the poorer the country, the least likely they are going to be able to borrow money. The less they can borrow money, the less they will have any chance of becoming competitive at all. The economies that are the richest, the most competitive and the best (according to the World Economic Forum) are those that have the greatest amount of debt. Here’s the case of the more you owe, the more the banks will lend you because you must be good since they lent money to you before. And we know that we never ever change our thinking for fear of having to admit that a mistake was made in the past.

So, just who are the worst, the guys you wouldn’t want to work with because the World Economic Forum has just pointed out their failings? Here’s the list in reverse order.

10. Burkina Faso

·         Its Global Competitiveness Score out of a scale of 1 to 7 stands at 3.21.

·         GDP per capita: $1,578, which means Burkina Faso is the 12^th lowest in the world.

·         It has a debt as a percentage of GDP which stands at 33.3% and so it is the 46^th lowest in the world.

·         The biggest problem in terms of economic activity is access to financing.

·         Only roughly 66% of children go to school in the country.

·         It is highly dependent on cotton and gold and has an unskilled labor force.

·         It has a life-expectancy of just 56 years of age on average.

·         It has almost the worst-rated level of infrastructure in the world and poor electricity networks.

9. Timor-Leste

·         This country has a Global Competitiveness Score that stands at 3.17.

·         Its GDP per capita stands at $22,808 and that makes it the 41^st highest in the world.

·         The number of residents using internet stands at just 1.1%, which is the lowest in the entire world.

·         Its biggest problem again just like for the previous country is financing of business activities.

·         Economic output is comparatively good with those that are at the bottom of the list, but its exports account for just 1% of GDP.

8. Haiti

·         The Global Competitiveness Score for this country stands at 3.14.

·         It has the 8^th lowest per capita GDP in the world at $1,362.
Its debt stands at 21.3% of GDP, making it the 20^th worst in the world.

·         There is great disparity between the vastly poverty-stricken Creole speakers and the wealthy French-speaking people.

·         There is inadequate infrastructure (in particular since the 2010 earthquake killed some 300,000 people).

·         This is coupled with corruption and difficulty in gaining access to financing for businesses.

7. Sierra Leone

·         Its Global Competitiveness Index score stands at just 3.10.

·         Its per capita GDP stands at $1,637, meaning it is the 13^th worst in the world.

·         Its debt is the 44^th worst in the world and stands at 32.6% of GDP.

·         Again access to financing is its biggest problem.

·         Life expectancy stands at just 45 years of age, mainly due to lack of medical developments and infrastructure in the country.

·         It has the 5^th lowest internet connection in the world and few have access to mobile phones.

·         Transport systems are also in bad shape.

6. Burundi

·         The GCI of this country stands at 3.09.
It has a GDP per capita of $665 and it is the second lowest in the entire world.

·         But, it has the 40^th lowest debt to GDP ratio standing at 31.7%.

·         It suffers greatly from corruption and this is considered as being the biggest obstacle to doing business in the country.

·         It has just suffered a military coup against President Pierre Nkurunziza. 

·         There was a civil war lasting 12 years that ended in 2005, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

5. Angola

·         The GCI score of this country stands at 3.04 out of 7.

·         It has a per capita GDP of $6,638 and is thus the 45^th lowest in the world.

·         Its debt is the 29^th lowest and stands at 26.6% of GDP.

·         Its access to financing is the biggest obstacle to becoming competitive.

·         Its GDP is the 5^th largest however on the African continent.

·         This is mainly due to an oil boom in recent years.

·         Its infrastructure is considered by the WEF to be one of the worst in the world.

4. Mauritania

·         The GCI for this country stands at 3/7.

·         It has the 21^st lowest GDP per capita at $2,331.
Its debt as a percentage of GDP stands at 87.7%, which means that it is the 22^nd highest.

·         It is one of the poorest nations in the world and yet one of the most indebted countries as a percentage of GDP.

·         Underdeveloped financial institutions may curb the new-found wealth that the country is hoping to exploit in the enormous oil reserves located in the Chinguetti and Tiof areas.

3. Yemen

·         The GCI here stands at 2.95.

·         GDP per capita is $2,396 and it makes it the 23^rd lowest country in the world.

·         It has the 57^th highest debt in the world at 49.9% of GDP.

·         Its main problem in terms of competitiveness is considered to be inadequate infrastructure.

·         There is little surprise with terrorist activities in the country and security issues that nobody wants to do business with this country.

2. Chad

·         The GCI stands at 2.84 for this country.

·         It has the 27^th lowest level of GDP per capita at $2,786.

·         Its debt is the 36^th lowest in the world at just 30.2% of GDP.

·         Access to financing is again the major cause for lack of competitiveness and economic activity.

·         The conflicts between the north and the south of the country on religious grounds are the cause of tensions and the lack of good infrastructure.

·         It has the worst infrastructure in the world according to the WEF.

1. Guinea

·         This is the worst country according to the WEF in the world for economic activity.

·         It scores just 2.79 on the GCI.

·         It has the 5^th lowest GDP at $1,178 per capita.
It has the 4^th lowest internet access in the world at 1.6% of the population.

·         Its biggest problem is a lack of access to financing.

·         Basic requirements are provided worse in this country than in any other country in the world.

·         It has the poorest electricity supply.

·         The roads are the worst.  

Basically, if the WEF ranks you in a low position in the world according to its 12 pillars, then it’s primarily because there is bad access or inadequate access to financing. That’s the cause? Banking?

It can be seen from the above data that a countries GDP per capita has very little to do with the economic ranking given by the World Economic Forum. For a country like Burkina Faso, the tenth worst economy in the world is still only the 12^th lowest in terms of GDP per capita. The figure in Burkina Faso might be low at only $1,578, while the USA’s is at $54,609.47 (and the 6^th ranked in the world), but it still doesn’t mean that it’s the worst. Guinea, the worst country in the entire world for economic activity might only have a GDP per capita of $1,178, but it’s only the 5^th lowest in the world. The criteria are based upon pillars that those countries have not or were not able to set up. They are being judged on our set of criteria and that can never allow them anything except the last place in the race and the wooden spoon.

Who could win if the rules have been set long before they were even entered to run the race that we had the starting gun too? Wouldn’t providing access to financing for these countries enable them to get just a little further ahead rather than having their legs tied together?