On Monday, October 15, CGD released the tenth addition of its Commitment to Development Index, which ranks wealthy nations on how much their governments’ policies and actions support global prosperity.
The release was covered by a number of news outlets, including The Guardian, Devex, and Quartz.
Coverage:
Inter Press Service
The United States scores above average on only two of the seven components, and with a score of 4.8 it ranks behind all major industrialised nations except Italy and Japan. Meanwhile, Nordic countries repeatedly stand at the top of the list, for several reasons.
“Superficially it’s about foreign aid; each of these countries gives a large amount of foreign aid for the size of their economy, about 1 percent of GDP,” Roodman said of the Nordic countries. “They are also pretty good with environmental policy, doing more than most countries to reduce the use of fossil fuels.”
Owen Barder, a senior fellow at CGD and director for Europe, offered a broader explanation for Nordic countries’ top rankings. In an interview last week, Barder said, “These smaller nations are forced to have an international outlook because of their size. I think this results in a sense of national pride in the role these countries play in international peace and environment negotiations.”
The Guardian
The UK is the only G7 country to make it into the top 10 of the Centre for Global Development's latest Commitment to Development Index (CDI) – but questions over the government's security and technology policies are depressing Britain's rating.
"British borders are also relatively closed to immigrants from poor countries and its government's policies do little to support the diffusion of technological advances abroad," added the report's authors, David Roodman and Julia Clark.
Roodman added: The UK should be proud to be the top-ranking large economy in the CDI – but there is still plenty of room, and need, for improvement.
Devex
The results of the 2012 Commitment to Development Index could be fodder for debate at the upcoming European Development Days, where top European aid officials will gather to discuss the future of European development cooperation.
As with last year’s index, the Nordic countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden came on top. David Roodman, CDG senior fellow and architect of the index, attributed the consistently good performance of these countries in the annual ranking to their high spending on aid relative to income, their sound environmental policies, strong sense of internationalism and willingness to engage in international issues.
Quartz
How do you measure the commitment of the world’s wealthiest countries to global development? We’ve got answers: The Center for Global Development has created an index that ranks the world’s top economies across seven categories—aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security and technology.