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Where does India stand as a charitable nation? It ranks 82 among the 128 countries surveyed by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), an international organisation that promotes giving to transform lives and communities across the world.
The findings, released on Tuesday, is an aggregate of trends for each country that emerged in surveys conducted by CAF over the past decade (2009 to 2018) and formulated as the World Giving Index (WGI). The survey covered 1.3 million (13 lakh) people worldwide.
According to the WGI, USA stood at the top followed Myanmar, New Zealand and Australia. Others in the top ten countries included Ireland, Canada, UK, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. India at 82 on the index falls below Nepal (53), Pakistan (69), Mexico (73) and Brazil (74). At the bottom of the list are Yemen, Greece and China.
The average figures for India over the past decade show that 34 per cent people helped a stranger, 24 per cent donated money and 19 per cent volunteered or donated their time. But India’s ranking may not be representing the complete picture since much of the giving here is informal and may have been missed by the survey.
As Meenakshi Batra, Chief Executive of CAF India notes in her press statement: “India has a strong culture of giving, but it largely remains unorganised and informal. Assisting others or helping strangers is viewed as a family or a community/ religious obligation. But giving needs to be more strategic. Money needs to go into the right places, for the right cause. With strategic giving, philanthropy will go a long way in creating a strong and healthy economy.”
She also said that CAF India would be launching a digital platform to make giving easier. “In the digital era, it is important that we get creative with technology to make strategic giving more credible and convenient for individuals. In the time to come, we will be launching technology platforms for payroll giving and online giving. Such steps can ensure a better ranking for India in the years to come.”
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