The countries best prepared for an economic recession – or any future event

Norway has been crowned as the most prepared country to handle the future, including the upcoming economic recession caused by COVID-19, while the UK comes in just eighth, expert analysis has found.

Futurist Mark Griffin, working with Carphone Warehouse, assessed 30 countries – chosen based on their projected GDP by 2030 and the speed of growth of their economy – to predict which are best suited to handle any future event.

Each country was ranked based on its performances in six categories that assess how well prepared it is for the current state of the world. These include infrastructure, communication, and technology and human rights, among others.

The analysis also included eight “disaster event” metrics, which predicted how well the country might handle things going awry. These include natural disasters, warfare and economic emergencies.

Norway claimed the top spot, outperforming with metrics such as environmental policies, human rights and liberties, natural resources and ability to handle extreme weather – all of which are strong indicators of its ability to handle all manner of future events, according to the authors.

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Second on the list was Canada. It scored healthily across almost all metrics considered, including solid performances for natural resources, cyber warfare and economic policies.

In third position, France scored highly for number of smartphones per person, as well as healthcare, infrastructure and natural resources. It also scored well for cyber warfare metrics and was predicted to handle extreme weather better than many of the other countries in the list.

Staying in Europe for fourth place, Germany boasted high scores across many metrics. It topped the cyber warfare metric and had good scores for infrastructure, economic policies, natural resources, and extreme weather.

Australia was the last country to score at least 100 out of a possible 150. It performed well for metrics such as infrastructure, healthcare and country peacefulness, while scoring eight out of 10 for communication and technology, economic policies, cyber warfare and others.

The famously neutral Switzerland was one of the top scorers when it came to peacefulness of the country. Other factors that placed it in sixth place included topping the natural resources metric, and scoring high marks for economic policies and extreme weather preparedness.

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The Netherlands came in seventh place mainly thanks to its top scores in communication and technology, economic policies, cyber warfare and natural resources. It also scored respectably for human rights and liberties, healthcare and in the country peacefulness.

Although the UK landed in the top 10, it only came in at eight place. Its top metrics included infrastructure, communication and technology and cyber warfare. The UK also scored eight out of 10 for factors such as human rights and liberties, economic policies and healthcare, among others, according to the index.

In ninth place, Singapore was the first country after Norway to get a perfect score of 10 for more than one metric. Alongside high scores for both economic policies and climate preparedness, Singapore scored high for infrastructure, country peacefulness and communication and technology.

Japan rounds out the top 10, getting full marks for infrastructure, as well as featuring strong in a variety of metrics. It scored nine out of 10 for healthcare, cyber warfare, the country’s peacefulness and natural resources.

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