The 2024 edition of the World Happiness Report released last week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that Malawians are plunging deeper into unhappiness dungeon.

The IMF has ranked Malawi 136 out of 143 in terms of the citizen’s self-evaluation, a metric that measures people’s satisfaction with their quality of life.

The ranking means Malawi has marginally improved from last year when it was 138th out 148 countries.

In the ranking, Malawi is pegged above Botswana, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Siera Leone, Lesotho, Lebanon and Afghanistan in that order.

In the bottom eight, minus Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, the other countries have been on civil wars in the recent decades.

But in terms of self-evaluation score, Malawi has dropped from 3.71 last year to 3.42 this year based on data collected from 2021-23.

The score means that Malawians believe that their quality of life is on average 34.2 percent of their perceived ideal state.

The IMF findings come barely a month after the World Bank reported in its February 2024 issue of the Malawi Economic Monitor that 20 percent of Malawians faced depression, some of it related to economic factors.

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