2021 Social Progress Index: Romania scores slightly better but is still last among EU countries

Romania has climbed one place and ranks 44th out of 168 countries in this year’s edition of the Social Progress Index compiled by non-profit organization Social Progress Imperative with the support of Deloitte. However, Romania is still last among the EU states included in the ranking.

The Social Progress Index (SPI) measures citizens’ quality of life and social wellbeing along three main dimensions: basic human needs (food and basic medical care, water and sanitation, shelter and personal safety), wellbeing (access to basic knowledge, access to information and communications, health and wellness, environmental quality), and opportunities (personal rights, personal freedom and choice, inclusiveness, access to advanced education).

Romania scored 78.41 points out of 100 in the 2021 index, slightly higher than last year. This places it among the ranking’s third category countries, after Argentina, Hungary and Bulgaria.

In the global ranking, Romania is in the top 50 countries in all of the three analyzed categories: basic human needs (41st place), opportunities (45th place) and wellbeing (50th place).

Romania obtained the best scores on access to communications and information (35th place), personal safety (38th ), personal rights (41st place) and access to advanced education (43rd place). On the other hand, it got lower scores on inclusiveness (85th place), health and wellness (81st place), and access to basic knowledge (73rd place).

“We could have expected the COVID-19 pandemic to set social progress back by years, yet is it remarkable that the world index is actually slightly higher than last year (65.05 points out of 100, compared to 64.68 in 2020). This is another illustration of how resilient and resourceful individuals, organizations, and societies have proven to be in the face of significant and persistent adversity. At the same time, we would all very much wish to see Romania move up from the very last position in Europe, which has not been the case this year despite progress on all three analyzed dimensions – basic human needs, wellbeing and opportunities,” said Alexandru Reff, Country Managing Partner, Deloitte Romania and Moldova.

In 2021, Norway, Finland and Denmark take the first positions in the ranking, while Chad, the Central African Republic and South Sudan are last. Among EU member states, Finland (2nd), Denmark (3rd) and Sweden (7th) are among the first countries in the ranking, with a good quality of life.

Among the Central and Eastern Europe countries, Estonia is the best-ranked country (21st), followed by the Czech Republic (22nd), Slovenia (26th), Lithuania (27th), Slovakia (33rd), Latvia (34th), Poland (35th), Croatia (36th), Hungary (42nd), Bulgaria (43rd), and Romania (44th).