Italy rises 25 positions in 5 years in UN Happiness Report

(ANSA) - TRIESTE, MAR 19 - Over the past five years, Italy has gone from 50th place to 25th in the World Happiness rankings, the president of the Ernesto Illy Foundation Andrea Illy told ANSA, noting that "thus I think something is changing".
    "I think that there is a new sort of awareness," he added, "in part because of the crisis, since Italians express a great deal of solidarity among themselves in moments of difficulty." The latest World Happiness Report shows that, despite the severe consequences of the pandemic, in a single year the country rose three places in the rankings, from 28th to 25th place, and over the past five it halved the distance between it and first place.
    The Ernesto Illy Foundation and IllyCaffe are among the supporters of the report, which is the result of an annual survey by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, chaired by the US economist and essayist Jeffrey Sachs.
    Illy noted that he had previously stressed in a book of his published a few years ago the "markedly individualistic behavior of the Italian population, which does not manage to work as teams.
    This creates problems in complex organizations like the public administration, as well as private enterprises, compared with the effectiveness in dealing with daily problems of other populations that, through altruism, manage to have a more collaborative attitude".
    However, Illy said, "I also said that altruism is nothing but another form of egoism. In Italy, in serious crises, solidarity surfaces" and the country changes considerably. (ANSA).