Out of step: the countries far stronger on one subject than overall

A country's overall place in the 2026 Country Index is an average across the subjects it is placed on. Behind most averages is a subject where the country stands much higher, or much lower, than it does overall. This piece is about the largest of those gaps — where they are, what the keys behind them measure, and why they are not errors. The figures are as the edition stood on 25 October 2026.

How the gap is measured

Places on different subjects cannot be compared directly, because the fields differ in size: 183 countries are ranked overall, but 200 are placed on Health & Wellbeing and 159 on Poverty & Inequality. So the gap is measured in shares of each field — how far down its own list a country sits, as a percentage — and the edition page flags a subject as out of step when the two shares differ by 15 points or more. A country 20th of 200 and 20th of 100 is not in the same place on the two lists, and the share says so where the place does not.

Environment, the great inverter

No subject sits further from the overall order than Environment & Sustainability. Of the ten largest gaps in the whole edition, nine are on it — and eight of those nine belong to countries placed in the last 40 overall. South Sudan is 183rd of 183 overall and 9th of 186 on Environment. The Central African Republic is 175th overall and 6th. Chad is 180th and 13th; DR Congo 172nd and 8th; Eritrea 177th and 15th; the Republic of the Congo 166th and 5th; Guinea-Bissau 171st and 12th. Angola, 154th overall, is placed first of 186.

The inversion runs the other way at the top. South Korea is 13th overall and 170th on Environment; Japan 15th and 161st; Belgium 17th and 155th.

The keys explain it. Three of the subject's four are higher-is-worse: CO₂ emissions per person (Global Carbon Project), ecological footprint per person (Global Footprint Network) and water stress (FAO). The fourth, organic agricultural area (FAO), is a share of farmland. A country that consumes very little, emits very little and draws little of its renewable water does well on three keys at once, and a country that consumes a great deal does badly on the same three. That is what the keys measure, and the subject's page says so. It is not a measure of environmental policy, protected area or air quality, none of which is a key.

Energy

Energy has three keys, two of them from Ember's electricity data: the carbon intensity of electricity (higher is worse) and the renewable share of generation (higher is better), with the World Energy Council's trilemma index as the third. A grid that is mostly hydro scores well on both Ember keys regardless of how much electricity it delivers or to whom. So Afghanistan, 175th overall, is 16th of 165 on Energy; Sudan, 179th, is 24th; Sierra Leone, 145th, is 4th. Hong Kong, 42nd overall, is 141st on Energy, and Moldova, 46th, is 134th: both run on imported fossil fuel or imported power.

The gaps on the other subjects

Elsewhere the gaps are smaller but tell a plainer story about what each subject's keys reward.

• Digital & Technology. Pakistan is 155th overall and 54th of 198 on Digital; Bangladesh is 140th and 59th; Tanzania 142nd and 63rd. The subject's keys are digitally-deliverable services exports, government AI readiness, government cyber capacity and GovTech maturity — measures of a state's digital apparatus and of a services-export sector, not of how many citizens are online. The Caribbean small states sit at the other end: Saint Lucia is 68th overall and 170th on Digital.
• Work & Labour. Nigeria is 151st overall and 16th of 182 on Work; Tanzania 142nd and 29th; Cambodia 130th and 26th. Two of the four keys count how many people are in work and how few are unemployed, which read well in economies where most people have to work; the other two, labour income share and vulnerable employment, pull the other way, but not far enough to cancel the first two. Greece, 38th overall, is 127th on the subject.
• Peace & Security. The Gambia is 156th overall and 27th of 177 on Peace; Timor-Leste 120th and 30th; Vanuatu 107th and 17th. Russia is 73rd overall and 171st on the subject; the United States 37th and 136th; Israel 36th and 131st. One of the four keys is the Global Militarisation Index, on which a large military relative to the economy reads badly whatever the reason for it.
• Democracy & Civil Liberties. Belarus is 57th overall and 189th of 198 on Democracy; China 49th and 178th; the United Arab Emirates 39th and 148th. These are the countries whose overall place is held up by economy, governance capacity, health and education standings and not by the four democracy keys.
• Gender & Equality. Qatar is 58th overall and 179th of 183 on Gender; the United Arab Emirates 39th and 143rd; Japan 15th and 116th.

What to make of it

A gap is not a correction waiting to be made. The index weights nothing — one key, one vote — and a subject standing is a real place among the countries measured on that subject. What a gap tells a reader is which keys a subject rests on, and that is why every subject page prints them, with the reason each was admitted. When a country's standing surprises, the first thing to read is the list of keys; the second is what a standing is. The third is the country's own page for the subject, where every key reading is printed beside the world median, with the country's place in the subject's field.