The size of foreign aid in different countries

http://www.ww2f.com/topic/54590-non-english-speaking-countries/

Your link is not relevant to the conversation and therefor does not support your argument. Your links is about the charity in general - which in the case of the USA is mostly domestic - by far, I suppose.

Maybe you are not aware of the big differences between most of the prosperous nations and the USA. In most of the Western countries the social welfare system works well, and that is payed by the taxes. Especially so that is the case with all of the Nordic countries, where there is no real need for any major domestic charity. The "charity" part has already been done by paying more taxes. Even the churches, which also do some charity, get their income through taxes - not by private donations.

In the countries like the USA - or Afghanistan and Haiti - where the governments are either unable or unwilling to take care of the poor properly, the ordinary citizens have to do more privately, since nobody else is doing it.

 

Looking back at the previous discussion and some of the counter claims against your views such as from Kodiak

While yes the US gives the most in total (To be expected considering it's the largest economy in the world) what I think Kodiak does not take into account is a per capita basis.

If country A. of 300m gives $1 in charity each annually and Country B. of 30m gives $5 in charity each annually while country A gave the higher over all amount country B still gives more money per a person.

Looking solely at Government aid the US gave just over $31 billion while the EU gave just over $70 billion. The US population is roughly 320m and the EU population is roughly 507m.

31 / 0.32 = $96.875

70 / .507 = $138.06

On a per capita basis the EU gives 42.5% more in aid then the US.

When looking at the economies as a whole the US has a GDP of $16.768 trillion and the EU a GDP of $17.512 trillion, Doing the math on that...

100 / 16,768 * 31 = .185%

100 / 17,512 * 70 = .4%

On an economy to economy basis the EU still gives more then double of their GDP then that of the US.

This isn't US bashing on my part, Just simple factual numbers.

 

The problem of course with those numbers is that there is a fairly strong attitude in the US that suggest that charity should be the provience of private entities and not governments. That attitude seams less prevalant or weaker in Europe. Thus the question is how accurate is it to leave out the private aspect? It might be interesting to know just what "aid" is included as well. I suspect there is a significant amount of US, what might arguably be considered to be aid, that is not being captured.

 

The data is pretty clear. The US is near the top of the list in charitable donations. Over 100 billion dollars a year - 30 Billion public moneys and 70 Billion in private donations.

And look below, Finland rates down with the 3rd world countries in charitable donations. Sorry, formatting destroyed... But follow the link to see the data formatted correctly.

Data summary Charitable giving by country Country Sub-region % of the population giving money to charities % of the population who have volunteered time for an organisation in the last month % of the population who have helped a stranger in the last month World giving index score (average of previous columns) Australia Australasia 70% 38% 64% 57% New Zealand Australasia 68% 41% 63% 57% Ireland W&S Europe 72% 35% 60% 56% Canada North America 64% 35% 68% 56% Switzerland W&S Europe 71% 34% 60% 55% United States North America 60% 39% 65% 55% Netherlands W&S Europe 77% 39% 46% 54% United Kingdom W&S Europe 73% 29% 58% 53% Sri Lanka Southern Asia 58% 52% 50% 53% Austria W&S Europe 69% 30% 58% 52% Lao People's Democratic Republic South Eastern Asia 64% 32% 53% 50% Sierra Leone Sub-saharan Africa 29% 45% 75% 50% Malta W&S Europe 83% 21% 40% 48% Iceland W&S Europe 67% 26% 47% 47% Turkmenistan Central Asia 17% 61% 62% 47% Guyana South America 36% 33% 67% 45% Qatar western asia/middle east 64% 18% 53% 45% Hong Kong Eastern Asia 70% 13% 50% 44% Germany W&S Europe 49% 28% 56% 44% Denmark W&S Europe 67% 20% 45% 44% Guinea Sub-saharan Africa 28% 42% 61% 44% Guatemala Central America 46% 33% 51% 43% Trinidad & Tobago South America 45% 25% 60% 43% Myanmar South Eastern Asia 36% 40% 52% 43% Thailand South Eastern Asia 73% 18% 36% 42% Luxembourg W&S Europe 58% 28% 41% 42% Kuwait western asia/middle east 41% 19% 67% 42% Norway W&S Europe 43% 38% 45% 42% Angola Sub-saharan Africa 24% 39% 61% 41% Italy W&S Europe 62% 16% 45% 41% Kenya Sub-saharan Africa 30% 28% 64% 41% Malawi Sub-saharan Africa 29% 35% 58% 41% Morocco Nothern Africa 72% 4% 44% 40% Tanzania Sub-saharan Africa 42% 26% 51% 40% Central African Republic Sub-saharan Africa 24% 47% 48% 40% Nigeria Sub-saharan Africa 29% 28% 61% 39% Costa Rica Central America 38% 23% 55% 39% Israel western asia/middle east 51% 18% 47% 39% Sudan Nothern Africa 26% 20% 69% 38% Somalia Sub-saharan Africa 35% 23% 56% 38% Liberia Sub-saharan Africa 8% 30% 76% 38% Chile South America 48% 16% 49% 38% Haiti South America 40% 38% 35% 38% Afghanistan western asia/middle east 35% 23% 55% 38% Finland W&S Europe 42% 28% 42% 37% Sweden W&S Europe 52% 12% 47% 37% Zambia Sub-saharan Africa 25% 27% 59% 37% Lebanon western asia/middle east 40% 13% 57% 37% Ghana Sub-saharan Africa 22% 31% 57% 37% Cyprus Central and Eastern Europe 42% 22% 45% 36% Belgium W&S Europe 40% 24% 45% 36% Bahrain western asia/middle east 43% 18% 48% 36% Philippines South Eastern Asia 25% 36% 48% 36% United Arab Emirates western asia/middle east 40% 14% 54% 36% Jamaica South America 28% 18% 61% 36% Colombia South America 24% 20% 63% 36% Indonesia South Eastern Asia 45% 27% 35% 36% Tajikistan Eastern Asia 17% 42% 48% 36% Belize Central America 28% 27% 50% 35% Syria western asia/middle east 33% 9% 62% 35% Uzbekistan Central Asia 24% 39% 41% 35% Honduras Central America 35% 27% 41% 34% Puerto Rico South America 30% 18% 55% 34% Slovenia Central and Eastern Europe 35% 27% 40% 34% Dominican Republic South America 25% 25% 52% 34% Panama Central America 35% 21% 43% 33% Mauritania Sub-saharan Africa 27% 15% 55% 32% Azerbaijan Central and Eastern Europe 22% 27% 48% 32% Mongolia Eastern Asia 33% 31% 32% 32% Botswana Sub-saharan Africa 15% 19% 62% 32% Mexico Central America 25% 20% 50% 32% Uganda Sub-saharan Africa 13% 22% 59% 31% Taiwan, province of China Eastern Asia 37% 15% 41% 31% Bolivia South America 22% 20% 50% 31% Tunisia Nothern Africa 19% 12% 61% 31% Malaysia South Eastern Asia 32% 29% 30% 30% South Africa Sub-saharan Africa 15% 19% 57% 30% Nicaragua Central America 30% 20% 39% 30% Brazil South America 25% 15% 49% 30% Argentina South America 21% 16% 52% 30% South Korea Eastern Asia 27% 22% 38% 29% Chad Sub-saharan Africa 22% 27% 38% 29% Poland Central and Eastern Europe 42% 9% 35% 29% Czech Republic Central and Eastern Europe 31% 18% 37% 29% Cameroon Sub-saharan Africa 18% 12% 56% 29% Iran western asia/middle east 35% 12% 38% 28% Djibouti Sub-saharan Africa 20% 16% 49% 28% Saudi Arabia western asia/middle east 27% 12% 45% 28% Comoros Sub-saharan Africa 12% 21% 51% 28% Namibia Sub-saharan Africa 17% 17% 49% 28% Spain W&S Europe 25% 13% 44% 27% Macedonia, FYR Central and Eastern Europe 38% 9% 34% 27% France W&S Europe 31% 22% 28% 27% Peru South America 20% 19% 42% 27% Senegal Sub-saharan Africa 16% 13% 52% 27% Mali Sub-saharan Africa 16% 21% 44% 27% Zimbabwe Sub-saharan Africa 9% 19% 53% 27% Singapore South Eastern Asia 35% 10% 35% 27% Congo Sub-saharan Africa 11% 18% 51% 27% Nepal Southern Asia 22% 21% 36% 26% Moldova Central and Eastern Europe 17% 20% 42% 26% Niger Sub-saharan Africa 11% 11% 57% 26% Uruguay South America 20% 15% 43% 26% Egypt Nothern Africa 19% 6% 52% 26% Yemen western asia/middle east 17% 7% 53% 26% Paraguay South America 31% 17% 28% 25% Algeria Nothern Africa 17% 9% 50% 25% Ethiopia Sub-saharan Africa 24% 13% 38% 25% Benin Sub-saharan Africa 19% 19% 37% 25% Belarus Central and Eastern Europe 11% 32% 32% 25% Iraq western asia/middle east 7% 6% 61% 25% Slovakia Central and Eastern Europe 29% 13% 31% 24% Albania Central and Eastern Europe 27% 15% 31% 24% Venezuela South America 19% 15% 37% 24% Ecuador South America 18% 16% 35% 23% El Salvador Central America 15% 12% 42% 23% Armenia Central and Eastern Europe 6% 12% 51% 23% Latvia Central and Eastern Europe 16% 18% 34% 23% Croatia Central and Eastern Europe 26% 6% 34% 22% Japan Eastern Asia 17% 23% 25% 22% Estonia Central and Eastern Europe 12% 15% 37% 21% Kazakhstan Central Asia 8% 22% 34% 21% Kyrgyzstan Central Asia 8% 25% 31% 21% Kosovo Central and Eastern Europe 35% 9% 20% 21% Hungary Central and Eastern Europe 22% 9% 32% 21% Palestinian Territory western asia/middle east 14% 10% 39% 21% Congo, Democratic Republic of the Sub-saharan Africa 12% 18% 32% 21% Bosnia & Herzegovina Central and Eastern Europe 29% 4% 29% 21% Mozambique Sub-saharan Africa 12% 14% 35% 20% Burkina Faso Sub-saharan Africa 6% 14% 41% 20% Togo Sub-saharan Africa 8% 19% 33% 20% Jordan western asia/middle east 22% 4% 33% 20% Portugal W&S Europe 15% 11% 33% 20% Cote d'Ivoire Sub-saharan Africa 6% 7% 45% 19% Georgia Central and Eastern Europe 5% 15% 37% 19% Turkey Central and Eastern Europe 14% 7% 35% 19% India Southern Asia 14% 12% 30% 19% Montenegro Central and Eastern Europe 18% 6% 31% 18% Vietnam South Eastern Asia 17% 6% 32% 18% Russian Federation Central and Eastern Europe 6% 20% 29% 18% Bulgaria Central and Eastern Europe 18% 3% 30% 17% Cambodia South Eastern Asia 34% 2% 13% 16% Pakistan Southern Asia 20% 8% 20% 16% Romania Central and Eastern Europe 14% 5% 28% 16% Rwanda Sub-saharan Africa 15% 11% 21% 16% Bangladesh Southern Asia 12% 5% 29% 15% China Eastern Asia 11% 4% 28% 14% Lithuania Central and Eastern Europe 4% 6% 33% 14% Greece W&S Europe 8% 5% 28% 14% Serbia Central and Eastern Europe 14% 5% 21% 13% Ukraine Central and Eastern Europe 5% 14% 19% 13% Burundi Sub-saharan Africa 9% 7% 21% 12% Madagascar Sub-saharan Africa 6% 11% 18% 12%
SOURCE: CAF

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitable-giving-country

 

KB - did you not understand my message #1 in this new thread? Please read it again.

I repeat: we were, or at least I was, talking about the FOREIGN aid - that means out of the country - not DOMESTIC. Since your quote still covers ALL charity, domestic AND foreign, it is not relevant - especially because in the case of the USA it is MOSTLY DOMESTIC, I presume.

And about domestic charity, which we were NOT talking about: the situations in the USA and e.g. in Finland are different, as I already explained. In most Western countries the social welfare is organised through governments and taxation. In the USA AFAIK it is much more dependent on private charity.

Maybe you prefer it that way, but we certainly do not. We want to organize the social security properly and pay more taxes instead of charity. Thus there is no need for similar amounts of private charity.

 

What's being captured under the definition of aid? I have a strong suspicion that not all aid is being captured. For instance if you look at military spending the definitions vary from one country to the next. Aid likely does as well. If you are talking charitable donations and aid why should it matter if it is internal or external? How much charitable donations are internal vs external is an interesting and likely complex question. For instance Red Cross donations can be spent either externally or internally. How do you count things like blood donations? Or organs for that matter. Without coming to some sort of agreement as to exactly what we are talking about does it make much sense to even try and discuss this?

 

Let's not change the parameters. Charity is charity. I pointed out that the US gives twice as much private as government foreign aid (70 vs 30 billion).

Finns are down there with the 3rd world countries in terms of generosity, without the excuse of poverty that 3rd world nations have. Americans are generous and Finns are not.

 

Indeed let's not! In case you have forgotten this post was the one which started this side show:

So, as you see, it was only about foreign aid all along, not domestic charity, which is useless to compare - for the reasons I have already twice explained.

Now, in your already several posts you are mixing the US official foreign aid with the US private charity - which is most likely mainly domestic. It's like counting apples and oranges when only the number of apples have been talked about.

If you prefer to have beggars and homeless people in your streets as well as people loosing their homes for medical bills - and then give them some pennies for "charity" to make you feel generous yourself - it's your business. We prefer to actually help those people in need - by paying more taxes and getting problems solved.

Guess which choice appears more "3rd world" in most of the developed countries...?

I suppose in my quote of foreign aid the definition is the same for all countries. I'm not saying it covers everything, but AFAIK it is comparable.

We were not talking about charitable donations at all, but about foreign aid.

I'm sure the Red Cross is well aware of the share of the donations used internally and externally. Maybe one can find that information somewhere, if needed.

Personally I'm not really interested in this hole topic. Somehow I just got dragged into it, when I happened to give some perspective to the often trumpeted claim of "the USA being the most generous in foreign aid"... ;-)

 

Well he does say the "US gives out much more charity" I don't see any mention of Foreign Aid in bronk7's post either. Looks like you are the one trying to constrain the discussion to make your point.

 

Am I not understanding something correctly?

Does that sentence not mean something being given outside from the USA to the other countries = foreign aid? That's how I understand that sentence and that post in general. In that context talking about domestic charity would not make any sense - at least not to me.

 

The first clause spoke to charity in general. The second clause did speak to charity going to foreign nations but it doesn't mean that that was all he was talking about. Indeed if you tried to narrow it down that much one could exclude direct aid or aid to anything other than foreign governements. Neither speak exclusivly to government aid. The third clause does talk about military used to provide aid but that aid is usually provided directly to individuals although it may help nations. It can be taken to highlight his point that the true cost of such aid is usually not captured in budget numbers. My impression of what he was doing was highlighting progressivly more precise areas as an example but that he didn't mean to limit his original statement. I will state that as worded it is somewhat ambiguous which is one of the big problems with English unless you take a lot of care with how you construct your messages.

 

Even in this narrow niche which you are trying to limit the discussion to, you are only counting the 30 Billion in government aid - not the 70 billion that Americans donate to FOREIGN Aid out of their own pockets. So, your figure of 0.19 as a ratio of National Income should be tripled to .57, which is more than the tight-fisted Finns give.

 

All that post is about is US giving aid to other countries - in one form or the other. I can't see any point why he would be talking about the US domestic issues - even if he doesn't specifically rule that out.

Sure - there are more forms of aid than just governmental aid and am not denying that. I'm - and I thought we all were - just not talking about the domestic charity issues since they are not relevant here.

I'm definitely not trying to limit anything to just governmental aid - just that if one wants to show some figures of private aid they should be of foreign aid only - apples for apples etc.

If you want to change/widen the subject please start another thread. This is for continuing the conversation - hopefully not for long - started in that other thread.

As I already explained I'm not trying to exclude private aid - just the part of it which is for domestic purposes, since that does not help other countries, does it?

Can you show me some evidence of that 70 billion being for FOREIGN aid, since that earlier link of yours did NOT do it? And while you are at it you might as well look for the comparable numbers of other countries, e.g. Finland, too?

In Europe we prefer to be less vocal about our good deeds. That's why we are happy to pay more for social well-being in taxes than in some countries, where they don't want to pay that extra tax-euro/dollar, but like to advertise their kindness by donating ten cents into charity ...

 

The 71 Billion figure from private sources is just foreign aid, adding that to the 31 Billion by government gives you a total of 102 billion which is a greater amount of the national wealth than the Finns give.

Since you brought up the subject, why are the Finns so cheap about giving aid to those in need?

 

Bronk's comment
"... but we are in huge debt, and the US still gives out much more charity than other nations, to nations that don't ''like'' the US ..."

The comment clearly isn't aiming a boot at the charity destined for domestic consumption, now then, is it?

 

Fair point on KB bringing up the $71 billion number, Had misread that earlier so counting that towards the foreign aid by the US government the statistics would become:

per capita

US . 102 / 0.32 = $318.75

EU . 70 / .507 = $138.06

As % of GDP

100 / 16,768 * 102 = .6%

100 / 17,512 * 70 = .4%

Should clarify though while this puts the US ahead on a per capita basis it does not take into account public/private donations from the EU. I am attempting to find such figures to make a final statistical analysts but it's slow, apologies.

However for the EU to be on par with the US public/private/corporate charity would have to chip in a combined $91.6 billion.

KB, on the matter of most charitable nations publicly and the % you posted, While that does show that more Americans as a whole give when they can what it does not take into account is the amount given, That said well done to American's as being more likely then others to give to charity when they can.

I also am curious if said number's account for domestic charity or foreign charity? As Karjala point's out in most western nations we pay higher taxes and as such get services provided that the US does not as such making more American's reliant on the charity of others.

 

And the 71 billion dollars in foreign aid figure includes "remittances by immigrant workers in the United States to their families outside the country" and is disputed. Some writers include remittances as aid, others do not. Though the Hudson Institute includes them.

I rather sure most other countries do not count such remittances as "foreign aid".

 

Considering the 2012 figures show the Lion share of government "Foreign aid" goes to Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan...

 

Von Noobie said:

"Should clarify though while this puts the US ahead on a per capita basis it does not take into account public/private donations from the EU. I am attempting to find such figures to make a final statistical analysts but it's slow, apologies.

However for the EU to be on par with the US public/private/corporate charity would have to chip in a combined $91.6 billion."




These figures will never be adequately found for Europe: it's not tax deductible, at least, not in all EU countries. Therefore, there will be no official statement on them, unless you want to collect all the figures from all the different charitable organisations throughout Europe.

So for instance, in the 2012 yearly accounting for Red Cross Sweden, you find that 309 Million SEK was spent on International aid.

UNICEF Sweden mentions 565 million SEK for foreign programmes in 2013. That's 874 million SEK to just these two organisations, in one of the smaller countries on the European continent.

Then there's a large number of other organisations, some not so well known outside of national boundaries. The Swedish Church, and Radio Hjälpen just two such examples. There'll be a mish-mash across Europe.

But considering the number of wealthy Billionaires in the US, such as Bill Gates, that are willing to give away almost their entire fortune (equivalent to the GDP of a moderate nation), Europe isn't really going to be able to compete with that. The smaller number of Billionaires, and those that do exist, are likely less willing to stand in the limelight and be seen doing acts of philanthropy.

 

You still haven't provided any source for your figure of 71 Billion for private US foreign aid - despite of my request. If that figure includes e.g. the money the immigrant workers send to their families - as Green Slime suggested - it hardly can be counted as "foreign aid".

At the moment you compere the official US foreign aid (aimed mostly at racist/militaristic/authoritarian governments!) + supposed US private foreign aid with the Finnish official aid only. Hardly comparable, wouldn't you say?

As Green Slime pointed out private donations are not tax deductible in many (most?) countries, Finland included. Therefor there is no one place where to find any total numbers for private foreign aid. At least you haven't presented any.

So far we have comparable figures for the official governmental aid only, which I have presented. They show, that although the USA naturally gives a lot of aid in total, per capita the aid is more modest.

No, I didn't bring it up. But since you asked - we give aid mostly by happily paying more taxes for it - without making any fuss over it. And we even give some charity on top of that too!

I could continue making similar types of questions from you too, but I think I already know the answers...