Seychelles

Seychelles ( (listen); French: [sɛʃɛl] or [seʃɛl]), officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: République des Seychelles; Creole: La Repiblik Sesel), is an archipelago country in the Indian Ocean. The capital of the 115-island country, Victoria, lies 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland Africa. Other nearby island countries and territories include Comoros, Mayotte (territory of France), Madagascar, Réunion (territory of France), and Mauritius to the south; as well as the Maldives and Chagos Archipelago to the east. With a population of roughly 94,367, it has the smallest population of any sovereign African country.Seychelles is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, and the Commonwealth of Nations. After proclaiming independence from the United Kingdom in 1976, Seychelles has developed from a largely agricultural society to a market-based diversified economy, with agriculture being supplanted by rapidly rising service and public sectors as well as tourism. From 1976 until 2015, nominal GDP output increased nearly sevenfold, and the purchasing power parity increased nearly sixteenfold. In the late 2010s, President Danny Faure and the National Assembly presented plans to encourage foreign investment in order to further upgrade these sectors.
Today, Seychelles boasts the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa, excluding the French regions. It is one of only a handful of countries in Africa with a high Human Development Index and is the first country in Africa with an HDI score exceeding 0.800 (excluding French territorial possessions). It is also the only country in Africa which is classed as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Despite the country's somewhat economic prosperity, poverty remains widespread, and there is a high level of economic inequality, one of the highest in the world, and unequal wealth distribution among the populace, with the upper and ruling class commanding a vast proportion of the country's wealth.