The U.K.’s Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) announced on the 20th that Myanmar has the world’s highest WGI (World Giving Index). In other words, Myanmar’s citizens are the most generous in the world compared to other nations. CAF reported that Myanmar has climbed to the top place since the past 2 years, alongside the United States. The WGI was evaluated by measuring rates of monetary donations, volunteer work, and also giving aid to strangers.
Interestingly however, Myanmar is currently the world’s poorest nation. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) announced that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is around 1270 U.S. dollars. This is around 43 times smaller than that of the United States, ranked 153 out of the 153 nations of the world.
Despite being less financially fortunate than other nations, Myanmar’s citizens have been shown to be the most giving in the world. According to CAF, Myanmar’s rate of monetary donations of individual citizens is as high as 91 percent. Next in line for this scale was Malta, which scored 78 percent. The U.S. scored 68 percent on this scale, while ranked top in the rate of giving aid to strangers.
According to South Korea’s World Ilbo, insiders of CAF explained that the reason Myanmar has such a high WGI was mainly because of its Buddhist culture. Statistics show that the nation has over 500,000 Buddhist monks, and the overall religious culture has made giving and donating a norm for the people.
Interestingly enough, this year’s WGI scale revealed that only 5 major economies were ranked in the top 20. The U.S. was ranked 1st with Myanmar, followed by Canada (3rd), Ireland (4th), and New Zealand (5th). The following nations included more developing nations including Malaysia (7th), Sri Lanka (9th) Trinidad and Tobago (10th), Indonesia (13th), and even Kenya (14th).
On the other hand, major economic powers that are included in the G20 Economies were on the lower half of the scale. Korea and Japan were ranked 90th, and other huge economies such as Russia (126th) and China (128th).
