The Economist’s country of the year for 2023

Historianswill not look back on 2023 as a happy year for humanity. Wars blazed, autocratic regimes swaggered and in many countries strongmen flouted laws and curbed liberty. This is the grim backdrop to our annual “country of the year” award. If our prize was for the resilience of ordinary people in the face of horror, there would be an abundance of candidates, from the Palestinians and Israelis in their bitter to the Sudanese fleeing as their country .Yet since we started naming countries of the year in 2013, we have sought to recognise something different: the place that has improved the most. The search for a bright spot in a bleak world led some of our staff to despair and propose , the fictional pink of a Hollywood blockbuster. But in real life, there are two sets of countries that deserve recognition in 2023.