WASHINGTON — The United States has significantly increased its foreign aid to poor countries but ranks 12th among the 21 richest nations in its overall performance in helping the world's poor, according to a widely watched annual report released Tuesday.
Denmark ranks as the most generous country in the world, spending 89 cents per person each day in government aid and 1 cent per person each day in private giving, according to the survey by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for Global Development.
The United States spent 15 cents per person each day in government aid to poor nations and 6 cents per person daily in private giving, the report found. The foreign aid statistics are based on 2003 data, and do not include the outpouring of charity sparked by December's South Asian tsunami. The United States has pledged $950 million for tsunami relief, part of an estimated $12 billion promised by Western donors.
The Commitment to Development Index attempts to measure how countries help the world's poor, not only by their direct foreign aid contributions but also their policies on trade, migration, the environment, technology, security and foreign investment.
For example, the index downgrades nations that sell expensive weapons systems to impoverished dictatorships, and it gives points to countries that accept migrants from underdeveloped countries. In calculating aid totals, it subtracts interest payments made by underdeveloped countries to donors.
Japan ranked last among the 21 donors, mainly due to high trade barriers, relatively low per capita foreign aid spending and a poor environmental record in developing countries.
The index has proved controversial in the past. After the tsunami, conservative politicians, activists and others were outraged by suggestions that the U.S. response to the disaster may have been "stingy" and lambasted the foreign aid index and other studies that challenged the notion that the United States was the most generous nation in the world. The U.S. spent more than any other nation on foreign aid in 2003.
Critics argued that such studies do not give the United States credit for the billions it spends in military operations that provide global security and ostensibly allow other nations' economies to flourish.
