The Center for Global Development has just released its 2010 Commitment to Development Index: “Rich and poor nations are linked in many ways-by foreign aid, commerce, the environment, and more. Each year, the CDI rates rich-country governments on how much they are helping poor countries via seven key linkages: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology.” The scores are adjusted for size. Sweden is the big giver of the bunch (lots of aid), although the U.S. fares better than expected thanks to its outsized trade and security contributions. South Korea does the least for poor countries, although France, Italy, Greece, Switzerland and Japan all score below average. [%comments]
How Much Do Rich Countries Help Poor Ones?
TAGS: development, poverty
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@ bob
“I won’t be satisfied until we are able to be the best in every category, no matter who measures it.”
Sorry, but it’s impossible for one entity in any comparison to be the best at every single conceivable category (unless you get theological).
Since limited resources must be allocated, if you invest loads of money into security to get a high score there, you won’t have as much money to invest in other categories which means other countries will score better.
Even if the US discovered a source of limitless energy and used that energy to help others, we’d still be ranked below other countries in some ways because we’d be refusing to share the technology with poorer countries – if we did share the technology then we’d be back to a more level playing field again which means we still wouldn’t be top in every category.
The key thing is to rank countries on what is really important… but since that’s a matter of opinion and debate, these reports will only ever be useful if you agree with all assumptions and weights used therein.
I don’t know that anyone is saying that the US is perfect, we screw things up all the time, but these ranking are complete junk and serve only to illustrate a predetermined point of view as desired by the publishing entity.
This list is mostly BS. The US gives FAR MORE per capita when you take into account private philanthropy. We are by far the most generous people in human history. Government aid is a lefty’s dream, but real sacrificial giving is voluntarily out of your own checkbook not giving away other people’s money.
There is also the research (for example on tropical diseases, public transport, energy use etc.) that is financed by rich countries and benefits everyone.
Direct aid is probably a small part of the total impact of one country on another.
Why should the raw numbers matter in terms of aid? We are the world’s largest economy, partly because we are a really big country, a whole lot bigger than, say, Norway. Why should we compare numbers rather than ratios?
@10
Maybe I misread the report – but the aid portion DOES include private philanthropy except in those countries where there is no government incentve (via tax benefits normally) to do so (as that cant be said to influenced by government policy). Therefore the countries where private philanthropy hasn’t been counted (basically scandinavian ones) comes out top even when their private donations are discounted and everyone elses aren’t.
The reasons the US does so poorly on the CDI index is because while private citizens may give more per capita to charity this is mostly domestic charity, required due to the poor level of governemnt provision within that country, and also much lower taxation than other developed countries means they have more discretionary spending to give.
They are also penalised because so much of their donations come with riders dictated by religous dogma which limits how effective the donations are (such as “we will build a school, but you have to ban condoms and exclude gays”).
On other indices it actively works against its own rating. In security the US would not only probably rate a 10, but would be so far off the top of the scale as to actually push other countries scores down if only military aid and peacekeeping were counted: however by supplying weapons to despots and engaging in non-sanctioned interventions it lowers its own score. The lesson here is that security spending doesn’t give you carte blanche to play your little wargames wherever you like.
We are not entitled to helping other countries, no country has to help another. First help yourself then help others when you are able to, advice for the United States.
Sweden is an awesome country so not surprised to find out that they help the most. I can understand how the U.S. would be somewhat hesitant to give aid considering past experiences with us being the moderator between countries. We offer help and in return they wage wars that we have to stop. Not surprising that those countries don’t contribute.
I think that each country should do there best for themselves and other countries. Trading and producing for other countries is how alot of our countries are allied. If The United States only worried about The United States than it would not have what it has now, like technology from japan or products from china. So Rich countries should help poor countries.