The World Giving Index 2016 was released this week and Thailand has fallen to number 37 on the list of 140 countries. Last year, the country was 19 and the year before that, 21. That’s a long fall!
The survey, by Charities Aid Foundation, a UK-based NGO, ranks countries on three kinds of generosity: donating money, helping strangers, and volunteering time. It surveyed over people from 140 countries using information from the widely-respected Gallup polls.
For 2016, Myanmar was in first place once again, the U.S. retained second place and Australia took third place.
Last year, Myanmar came in first place, the U.S. was next and New Zealand was in third place.
Near the bottom, the numbers stayed the same: China, Russia and most of the former Soviet Union countries were in the bottom 20.
China had the lowest overall score for volunteering and donating, leaving them in the 140th position. They were in the 139th position last year.
Survey detail courtesy of CAF
Over the years, the study has ascertained that the wealth of a country does not seem to correlate to its charitable giving. In fact, some relatively wealthy countries give little — Japan is at number 114 and South Korea is at position 75 — and some poor countries give lots, such as Myanmar.
According to the report, “Myanmar’s 2016 overall score is largely driven by high levels of participation by donating money (91 percent of people) and volunteering (55 percent of people), although it has seen an increase in the proportion of people helping a stranger this year (63 percent of people).”
“As highlighted each year since it first topped the rankings in the 2014 report, Myanmar has certain characteristics which have helped it achieve this status. Anywhere from 80 percent to 90 percent of people in Myanmar are practicing Buddhists with as much as 99 percent of those following the Theravada branch of the religion. In Theravada Buddhism, followers donate to support those living a monastic lifestyle — a practice known as Sangha Dana. Giving in this way carries significant religious meaning and small, frequent acts of giving are the norm.”
Thailand is also a strongly Theravada Buddhist country. So it’s interesting that the country’s ranking has dropped so much.
The survey does not give reasons for position changes but the political uncertainty in the country could have something to do with it.
Other notable changes include: Uzbekistan has moved into the top 20 for the first time while Malaysia and The Netherlands fell from the top ten list. Turkmenistan jumped up an amazing 53 places to land at 15.
