Three things we would not miss if we moved to another First World country

[makapaaa]

http://trulysingapore.wordpress.com...s-if-we-moved-to-another-first-world-country/

[h=2]Three things we would not miss if we moved to another First World country[/h]<small class="single-by"></small>I refer to the 29 Jul 2013 Straits Times letter “Three things to cherish in S’pore” by Mr Maa Zhi Hong [1].
Mr Maa reminded fellow Singaporeans to cherish the three things we would miss most if we lived in another country – clean drinking water, low crime rate and clean streets. The following table shows 26 other advanced economies that score better than Singapore for the average of percentage of population with access to improved water source, non-homicide rate and environment performance indicator [2].

Countries	Average % population with access to improved water source 1990-2010	Average Environment Performance Indicator 2000-2012 (normalised upon 100)	Average non-homicide rate 1995-2011 (per 100,000)	Average of the three indicators
Switzerland	100.0	100.0	100	100.0
Norway	100.0	90.2	100	96.7
Luxembourg	100.0	89.1	100	96.4
Austria	100.0	88.6	100	96.2
Italy	100.0	88.2	100	96.1
Sweden	100.0	87.5	100	95.8
France	100.0	86.9	100	95.6
Germany	100.0	86.4	100	95.5
United Kingdom	100.0	86.3	100	95.4
Iceland	100.0	84.3	100	94.8
Netherlands	100.0	84.1	100	94.7
Slovakia	100.0	83.0	100	94.3
New Zealand	100.0	82.5	100	94.2
Finland	100.0	81.6	100	93.9
Czech Republic	100.0	81.5	100	93.8
Japan	100.0	80.9	100	93.6
Denmark	100.0	80.8	100	93.6
Belgium	100.0	79.5	100	93.2
Slovenia	99.8	78.4	100	92.7
Spain	100.0	75.4	100	91.8
Greece	98.8	75.8	100	91.5
Canada	100.0	74.0	100	91.3
Ireland	100.0	73.9	100	91.3
Cyprus	100.0	73.8	100	91.3
Australia	100.0	73.5	100	91.2
United States	99.0	73.4	100	90.8
Singapore	99.9	71.8	100	90.6
Estonia	98.0	72.8	100	90.3
Israel	100.0	70.8	100	90.3
Portugal	98.0	70.8	100	89.6
South Korea	93.7	71.8	100	88.5
Malta	100.0	61.9	100	87.3

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We should thus not miss these First World creature comforts too much if we moved to any other First World nation. We should also remember that our journey towards the First World began during the colonial days. For example, our clean water system began with Tan Kim Seng’s $13,000 donation in 1857 to build our first waterworks and piped water supply [3].
[1] Straits Times, Three things to cherish in S’pore, 29 Jul 2013
[2]
Percentage of population with access to improved water source:
• Data from World Bank data which is in turned from World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund, Joint Measurement Programme
• Averaged from 1990 to 2010 (latest available)
Non-homicide rate
• Non-homicide rate calculated by taking 1 – homicide rate / 100,000.
• Homicide rate is from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• For example, Switzerland has a homicide rate of 0.95 cases per 100,000 population. This means that the corresponding non-homicide rate is 99,999.05 per 100,0000 population or close to 100%
• Averaged from 1995 to 2011 (latest available)
Environment Performance Indicator
• Used as proxy for road cleanliness
• Data from Yale university and Columbia university averaged from 2000 to 2012 and normalised against the highest scorer, Switzerland
[3] http://www.pub.gov.sg/about/historyfuture/Pages/WaterSupply.aspx
It was only in 1857 that philanthropist Tan Kim Seng made a donation of S$13,000 for the building of Singapore’s first waterworks and piped water supply.