16 Leaders The EconomistDecember 21st 2019
2 Another option is for the state to build more housing itself. In
Singapore, another place where there is practically no homeless-
ness, 80% of residents live in government-built flats which they
buy at knock-down prices. While many countries have been pri-
vatising their stock of public housing, Finland has been building
more of it, giving the government the wherewithal to put home-
less people in their own apartments rather than warehousing
them in shelters (see Europe section). It has embraced an ap-
proach originally pioneered in America, which does not demand
that homeless folk quit drinking or drugs before giving them ac-
commodation. Instead it gives them a home first, and then offers
intensive support to help them cope with their problems. In Fin-
land the homeless numbers are moving in the right direction.
The most effective reform, however, would be to make build-ing more homes easier. In many countries nimbyist planning
rules vastly inflate the market price of shelter. Such rules should
be slashed. The problem of rough sleeping in Germany and Swit-
zerland, two countries with minimal real-house-price growth in
recent decades, is less acute. Japan has used its fair share of
strong-arm tactics to deal with the homeless, but then it intro-
duced a big urban reform in the early 2000s.Up and inside in Tokyo and Singapore
Japan loosened planning rules, prompting residential construc-
tion to jump. Since then, housing costs in Tokyo have fallen in
real terms and the number of rough sleepers has fallen by 80% in
20 years. Until cities elsewhere let the buildings go up, more peo-
ple will find themselves down and out. 7O
ur annual“country of the year” award celebrates improve-
ment. Each December, therefore, we give a hostage to for-
tune. The places that climb furthest are often those that started
near the bottom: poor, ill-governed and unstable. Freshly won
democracy and peace do not always last, as Aung San Suu Kyi, the
leader of Myanmar (The Economist’s country of the year in 2015)
ended up reminding the world when she appeared recently at the
International Court of Justice in The Hague and glossed over the
ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority, by her
country’s soldiers.
In 2019 the most striking political trend was a negative one:
belligerent nationalism. India has been stripping Muslims of
citizenship, China has been locking up Muslims in camps,
America has taken a wrecking ball to global institutions. So
strong was the global tide that it was a relief to see some coun-
tries paddling the other way. New Zealandde-
serves an honourable mention for its response
to a massacre in mosques by a white nationalist.
Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, put on a
headscarf and declared that an attack on Mus-
lims was an attack on all New Zealanders. Her
government banned semi-automatic weapons
and bought thousands of them from the public.
Even more impressive was North Macedo-
nia, which changed its name to promote peace with its neigh-
bour. Greece had objected that its former moniker, Macedonia,
implied a claim to the Greek region of the same name. Greek in-
transigence prevented the Macedonians from joining natoor
starting negotiations to join the European Union. So lawmakers
in Skopje swallowed their pride and voted to rename their coun-
try; the change took effect in February. Relations with Greece are
now much warmer. A source of discord has been removed from a
tetchy region. North Macedonia is on track to join nato. Alas,
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France (country of the year
2017) is blocking its candidacy for the eu, fearing that welcoming
another Balkan state into the club would irk French voters.
Two countries became notably less despotic in 2019. In Sudan
mass protests led to the ejection of Omar al-Bashir, one of the
world’s vilest tyrants. His Islamist regime had murdered and en-slaved so many black Africans that a third of the country broke
away to form South Sudan in 2011. Mr Bashir was convicted of
corruption in a Sudanese court on December 14th (see Middle
East & Africa section) but seems unlikely to be extradited to
stand trial for overseeing genocide in Darfur. A new power-shar-
ing government vows to hold elections in three years, is negoti-
ating peace in Darfur and has eased the dress code for women.
However, the risk that thugs from the old regime may scupper
democratic reforms is still worryingly high.
So the winner is a country Herman Cain, an American presi-
dential candidate, once dismissed as “Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-
stan”. Three years ago Uzbekistanwas an old-fashioned post-
Soviet dictatorship, a closed society run with exceptional brutal-
ity and incompetence. Its regime allegedly boiled dissidents
alive, and certainly forced legions of men, women and children
to toil in the cotton fields at harvest time.
When Islam Karimov, the despot for 27 years,
died in 2016, he was succeeded by his prime
minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. At first, little
changed. But after dumping the head of the se-
curity services in 2018, Mr Mirziyoyev began re-
forms that have accelerated over the past year.
His government has largely ended forced la-
bour. Its most notorious prison camp has been
closed. Foreign journalists are let in. Bureaucrats are banned
from calling on small businesses, which they previously did
constantly, to bully them for bribes. More border crossings have
opened, helping unite families divided by Central Asia’s crazy
quilt of frontiers. Foreign technocrats have been invited to help
overhaul the state-stifled economy.
Uzbekistan is to hold parliamentary elections before the new
year (see Asia section). Although it is far from a democracy—all
of the parties support Mr Mirziyoyev and some critics remain be-
hind bars—some of the candidates have offered mild criticisms
of the government, which would previously have been unthink-
able. Ordinary Uzbeks, too, feel free to lampoon the campaign
and grumble about the political class, without fear of being
dragged off in the middle of the night. Uzbekistan still has a long
way to go, but no other country travelled as far in 2019. 7The improvement prize
Which nation made the most of 2019?Country of the year