Prometheus 6

Netherlands, Denmark 'Most Committed'
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 27 (IPS) - The Netherlands and Denmark received top rankings for the second year in a row in the annual Commitment to Development Index (CDI) designed to measure the degree to which the world's wealthiest countries pursue policies that benefit the planet's poorest people.

Due to changes in the Index's methodology, the United States jumped from number 20 for 2001 to number seven in 2002 -- the last year for which full data on all of the Index' criteria are available -- largely on the basis of its relatively open immigration policies and the inclusion of private contributions in calculating the total amount of aid that it provides to poor countries.
Britain led all Group of Seven (G-7) nations in fourth place, followed by Canada, which also improved its standing over 2001 due to more liberal immigration policies, Germany and France which tied with the United States in seventh place.

As in last year's Index, Japan finished last among the 21, despite its status as the world's second biggest aid donor. Just above it in ascending order were Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Greece and New Zealand.

The Index, released Tuesday by Washington-based 'Foreign Policy' magazine and the Centre for Global Development (CGD), is based on numerical calculations covering seven different national policies -- aid, investment, migration, environment, security, technology and trade -- that influence the welfare of the world's poorest nations.

In assessing an overall score for trade policy, the Index gives the greatest weight to the degree to which donor countries protect their home markets, through tariffs, quotas, and subsidies from developing country imports. It also measures how much rich nations import from poor countries, with additional points being granted for imports from the poorest nations and for manufacturing imports.

In this category, the United States topped the list for the second year in a row, while Norway, which retains particularly high tariffs on agricultural products, scored lowest.

On technology, Index researchers calculated government support for research and development (R&D) as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), although spending on defence-related R&D, in which Washington is dominant, was discounted by one-half.

According to this calculation, Austria and Canada came out on top with R&D spending of 0.9 percent of GDP, while Greece and Ireland, with 0.3 percent of GDP, landed in the cellar. The United States, with its defence R&D discounted, ranked only eighth on the list.

For security, points were accrued for participation in peacekeeping operations and forcible humanitarian interventions that had been authorised by multilateral bodies, such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) from 1993 to 2000. Participation was assessed according to the size of the donor countries' defence budgets and the percentage of its standing forces committed to such efforts.

As a result, Norway scored at the top of the pack, followed closely by Britain and Australia (due largely to its 1999 intervention in East Timor). Japan and Switzerland scored the lowest in this category, while the United States, despite having committed more than 50,000 troops to interventions in Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, ranked in the middle.

The environmental score was based on a two-thirds weight given to the estimated harm done to the global commons -- through, for example, greenhouse gas emissions, low gasoline taxes and subsidies for fish -- by individual countries. The remaining one-third was based on contributions to environmental initiatives, such as ratification of major treaties and donations to funds that help poor countries improve the national and global environments.

Under this methodology, Switzerland scored first for the second year in a row, primarily on the strength of its low greenhouse gas emissions, while the United States came dead last as a result of its high greenhouse gas emissions and its continued boycott of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce them. Australia and Canada also received low scores, while the European Union (EU) was led by Germany and Austria, followed by France and Britain.

The net inflow of people from poor countries to wealthy ones between 1995 and 2000 accounted for nearly two-thirds of the Index's migration score, while the rest was determined by the amount of aid host governments provide to refugees and asylum seekers and the percentage of students from developing countries among the total foreign-student population.

Using this new methodology, the Index found that Canada received the highest marks followed by the United States and Australia. At the other end of the spectrum, Japan scored lowest, followed by Spain, Belgium and Finland.

On investment, the Index tried to measure what donor governments do both to facilitate investment flows to poor countries and to ensure such investment promotes development. It weighed the degree to which countries provided political risk guarantees and other incentives to encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) and whether those incentives were modified by environmental or worker-rights conditions to be followed by investors.

The Netherlands, Germany and Australia all received top scores in this area, while Ireland and New Zealand ranked lowest.

Finally, the Index's aid component assessed total official assistance -- including grants and low-interest loans -- as a percentage of the donor country's GDP. All aid that was ''tied'' to the purchase of goods or services from the donor nation was discounted by 20 percent, and debt payments by the recipient to the donor on past aid was also subtracted.

In addition, the choice of recipient countries was also considered, with aid to countries seen as relatively poor but well-governed getting more credit than aid to middle-income countries and those with corrupt and unaccountable governments.

Donors that gave aid in amounts of less than 100,000 dollars lost points on the grounds that such practices tend to create unnecessary administrative burdens for poor countries.

Countries that offered tax incentives for private charitable contributions were given bonus points, as were nations that generally had lower taxes, on the assumption that post-tax income leads to more private contributions.

According to these calculations, Sweden ranked first among donors, followed closely by Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. New Zealand ranked last, followed by Greece and the United States. Aside from the Netherlands, EU countries were led by France and Belgium. (END/2004)