Thursday, March 04, 2004
Ranking the Samaritans
[Via Divya] Americans often find it incomprehensible when outsiders tell them how little aid (as a proportion of GDP) America actually hands out. Being a very charitable people (certainly the most charitable I know), they seem to think it's more in the 10% range than the less than 0.1% range it actually is in. The 0.1% is not discounting all the aid given to prop rogue regimes, military aid etc. Foreign Policy and the Center for Global Development have put together a ranking of the 21 large aid giving nations on 6 parameters. In an obvious twist, the two largest absolute aid givers, the United States and Japan, end up at the bottom of this list.
Development is a state as well as a process. A society has achieved a state of development to the extent that its citizens live free from want and tyranny and can obtain education and employment. But for the four fifths of the world’s population still living in developing countries, the practical question is not what development is, but how to achieve it—and how to speed the process. The CDI measures how well rich countries contribute to the process in six policy areas: aid, trade, environment, investment, migration, and peacekeeping. The countries, scored on a 10-point scale for each policy area, are then ranked by their overall averages. Different scores are calculated in different ways, reflecting the particular issues involved and the availability of data.
The results of the first annual CDI cast traditional assumptions about the most development-friendly countries in a new, unexpected light. For example, the two countries providing the highest absolute amounts of foreign aid to the developing world—Japan and the United States—bring up the rear in the index. Japan ranks last overall, with low marks in migration and aid. The United States ranks high in trade policy but finishes second to last overall due to particularly poor performances in environmental policy and contributions to peacekeeping. By contrast, the Netherlands emerges as the top-ranked nation in the index, thanks to its strong performance in aid, trade, investment, and environmental policies. Two other small countries, Denmark and Portugal, follow in second and third place, respectively. Norway, which is usually regarded as a model global citizen and a force for peace worldwide, comes in a disappointing 10th, mainly due to its poor trade performance. And though New Zealand is not noted for its particularly generous aid giving, that country finishes fourth overall thanks to a strong showing in migration and peacekeeping policies.
Development is a state as well as a process. A society has achieved a state of development to the extent that its citizens live free from want and tyranny and can obtain education and employment. But for the four fifths of the world’s population still living in developing countries, the practical question is not what development is, but how to achieve it—and how to speed the process. The CDI measures how well rich countries contribute to the process in six policy areas: aid, trade, environment, investment, migration, and peacekeeping. The countries, scored on a 10-point scale for each policy area, are then ranked by their overall averages. Different scores are calculated in different ways, reflecting the particular issues involved and the availability of data.
The results of the first annual CDI cast traditional assumptions about the most development-friendly countries in a new, unexpected light. For example, the two countries providing the highest absolute amounts of foreign aid to the developing world—Japan and the United States—bring up the rear in the index. Japan ranks last overall, with low marks in migration and aid. The United States ranks high in trade policy but finishes second to last overall due to particularly poor performances in environmental policy and contributions to peacekeeping. By contrast, the Netherlands emerges as the top-ranked nation in the index, thanks to its strong performance in aid, trade, investment, and environmental policies. Two other small countries, Denmark and Portugal, follow in second and third place, respectively. Norway, which is usually regarded as a model global citizen and a force for peace worldwide, comes in a disappointing 10th, mainly due to its poor trade performance. And though New Zealand is not noted for its particularly generous aid giving, that country finishes fourth overall thanks to a strong showing in migration and peacekeeping policies.
