We are now into our 14 hours of flying to Norway. Norway is ranked as the number one country in the world to live, by the United Nations. We’ll be spending almost 10 days there. Given that the world backdrop presents lots of turmoil:
The huge migration of people from the Middle East.
The xenophobia prevalent throughout the world.
The challenge, will, and capability to merge different cultures and values.
The pandemic threat of the Zika virus, Ebola virus, AIDS, Denghue Fever, and even Lead contaminated water, etc.
Changing world order over leadership and basis of governing.
Global climate change
Emergence of terrorism both internally and externally source
I’m curious to learn how the top ranked country behaves.
The ranking is defined by the Human Development Index (HDI), comprised of 200 countries. Putting this in perspective, the USA is ranked 8th, and Ireland, which we’ll visit next week, is 6th. Syria, in contrast, is ranked 134th.
The HDI is a summary measure of average achievement in three key dimensions: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and having a decent standard of living. Long and healthy life is basically life expectancy. Knowledgeable is measured by years of schooling, and standard of living is the per capita income. If you want further detail, I encourage you to research them on the web.
I will focus my attention-lens on how Norway acts and reacts to the turmoil in the world.
Norway
Norway is approximately the size of New Mexico with about 5 million people. Its shape serves as a shield on the western borders of Sweden, Finland, and Russia against the Norwegian and Barents Seas. While most of Norway is connected to the European landmass, there is a large set of islands further north, closer to the geographic North Pole. The economy is based primarily on natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, and minerals. The 1969 discovery of major oil fields in Norwegian waters catapulted the country into one of wealthiest countries in the world. It is only second to the Middle East in oil and natural gas production.
The migration of peoples from the Middle East into Europe has pushed immigration to the top of their national agenda. Norway, as a participant, has committed to accepting 7,000 immigrants. While being open to and welcoming of immigrants, two weeks ago it voted in new regulations that require immigrants to hand over family assets in excess of about $1400, to defray the country’s cost of supporting them. They quickly added that this same rule applies to citizens of Norway when they need to be subsidized by the state. Switzerland has similar regulations. The USA has committed to accepting 100,000 refugees over the next few years.
We also need to be mindful that the size of the USA vs Norway certainly impacts what we might learn – running a $100 million company is much simpler than running a $100 billion company.
We have arrived in Oslo, it’s getting dark, it is cold, we need sleep. We’ll stay up as long as we can tonight in hope of getting adjusted to the time difference. Tomorrow we tour Oslo.
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