Malaysia Makes Top 10 List Of World's Most Generous Nations
Malaysia managed to keep its top ten placing among the world's most generous nations for the second consecutive year in the annual World Giving Index 2015.
Charities Aid Foundation’s (CAF) annual World Giving Index is based on surveys of people aged 15 and over in 145 countries carried out by Gallup in 2014, part of its World View World Poll, UK charitytimes.com reports earlier this week.
Malaysia jumped into the top ten list last year, from 71st position to 7th position which CAF attributed to “a wholesale behavioural change” within the country in its previous report last year.
Pic: CAF
Malaysia made the top ten list based on the three criteria used by CAF to gauge the generosity of each nation's citizens.
The Gallup poll asked participants whether they have done the following actions in the past month, categorized as charitable acts like helping a stranger, or someone you didn’t know who needed help, donating money to a charity or volunteering at a local organisation.
Pic: CAFIn summarizing the key highlights of this year's report, CAF chief executive John Low noted that global participation in giving was up to 31.5 per cent from 28.3 per cent from the year before meaning over 1.4 billion people in the world gave money to charity and almost half of the planet’s population of people aged over 15 had helped a stranger.
“Across the world, people are becoming increasingly generous. As economies across the globe rapidly transform, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead the way in helping other countries embed a similar culture of giving.”
How did our Asian neighbours fare? Singapore ranked 34, Thailand 19, Phillipines 46, Indonesia 22, Vietnam 79 and Cambodia 100 while further afield, South Korea came 64, Japan 102, Taiwan 35 and shockingly, China came in at 144, one spot from the bottom of the list which was occupied by Burundi at 145.
However, it would not have escaped any reader's notice that occupying number one spot in the world is Myanmar followed by many of the developed nations in the world.
Why is Myanmar the most generous country in the world?
"As highlighted previously, Myanmar’s strong culture of Theravada Buddhism, in which devotees practice Sangha Dana, continues to drive high levels of giving. Myanmar deserves to be lauded for its culture of generosity but sadly, the achievement will inevitably be contrasted to the continuing plight of the Rohingya people within the country," CAF noted in its analysis of Myanmar in the recent report.
The CAF report key findings show that religious practices are key to contributing to a country's ranking, noting that the obvious ranking of Myanmar in top spot is solely due to its majority population's practice of Theravada Buddhism while also noting that countries with majority Muslim populations are responsible for the significant improvement in world rankings in recent years due to its practice of donating money.
Other contributing factors are cultural heritage and behaviours as well as highly disruptive crisis and environmental disasters like civil war, famine, earthquakes and typhoons which spur each community's fund raising efforts.
- mD
.jpg)
