“Sharing Future Happiness” is the theme chosen by Finland for its Expo 2020 Dubai pavilion. There is a good reason for this: Finland has been ranked the world’s happiest nation for four consecutive years.
Happiness is not something we Finns want to keep to ourselves. We are in business of sharing it. It is clear that happiness resonates well in the UAE - a nation which has ambitious plans for the future of the country and its people.
Finland has created during the 104 years of its independence its own recipe for happiness: mixing a lot of mutual trust with stability, quality education and equality. In short, our citizens are happy because our society is built on something that could be described as an infrastructure of happiness. This enables those living in Finland to be content with their everyday lives and confident about their future. Of course, this is not the only recipe for happiness - there can be others. Once again, the UAE and Finland celebrate their national days almost back-to-back. First, the Golden Jubilee was celebrated with the green, white, black and red colours of the UAE flag flying high. On December 6, this is followed by the blue and white colours of the Finnish flag flying over the snowy landscape and frozen lakes.
Both countries are equally proud of their independence and the progress of their societies. The UAE and Finland share the overriding aim of entering the next phase of development through investing in people, their education, knowledge and skills.
Finland and the UAE might be geographically far from each other but there is a lot of scope for deepening cooperation. A lot could be achieved through learning from each other and working together on themes such as digitalisation, sustainability, circular economy and health.
