Sri Lanka ranks 8th in the World Giving Index

Ziggy | 11 Nov, 2015 11:14AM | Leave a comment


Sri Lanka has become more generous this year ranking at 8th place, up one place from last year, in the recently released 2015 World Giving Index (WGI) report.




According to the annual report released by the Charities Aid Foundation, Sri Lanka with a strong Theravada Buddhist community is one of the ten top most generous countries in the world placing 8th out of 145 countries with a score of 56.

The World Giving Index 2015, which includes data collected throughout the calendar year of 2014 across the globe, looks at charitable behaviors of 145 countries including the tendency of helping strangers, donating money and volunteering time.

Sri Lanka ranked at the second place for participation in volunteering time with 48 percent of people participating in such activities while ranking at 16th for donating money. The country was less generous in helping a stranger ranking at 33.

Myanmar ranked at the top of the index while the United States, which shared the top rank last year with Myanmar, slipped a notch this year to second place. New Zealand, Canada, and Australia rounded up the top five in that order.

In the South Asia region India ranked at 106th place, Pakistan at 94, Bangladesh at 95, Bhutan at 17th and Nepal at 76th place.

One of the key findings of this year's index is that the cultural heritage of a country can also impact on giving behaviors. It also found that disruptive events continue to have an influence and at a global level.

Donating money is up this year by 3.2 percent as almost a third of global population donated money although the behavior in a few very large countries can impact significantly on the number of people giving worldwide. For the first time since 2008, men are more likely to give money than women, the WGI found.

-news.lk