Talk:List of development aid sovereign state donors

Official development assistance by country in absolute terms in 2013
Absolute terms is clearly the least important aspect, so why is this first? The only valid aspect is per capita i.e. relative per individual and (purchasing power parity adjusted) GDP. Otherwise we are basically just listing the size of the populations in industrialized countries, which is completely pointless and misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.204.149.177 (talk) 13:19, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Seeking a second source
As I type this, this article only has one source, and I have various problems with it. First of all, not all countries are included in this source. Second, the source itself admits that they, in their research, only used information in English, which gives a view skewed towards english-speaking countries. Therefore, I would hope someone can find a second source for this.

Chart-ify
Looks like we have the data to do it fairly easily. Anybody up to the challenge? --Kallahan (talk) 11:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Destination of charity
In the figures provided via Cafonline source, the social security contributions are also given. The destination of the chartible contributions should also be considered, if the charitable donation provides service/aid that in other countries would be provided under the social security/tax systems the comparison is skewed. The source could be considered as merely political in favour of low social contribution systems and to non-obligatory contribution systems. At least a destination breakdown would be benefitial to understand the figures better (does the money stay inland, go abroad, pay for food and clothing or housing for needy in the home country, etc. Ely —Preceding unsigned comment added by  (talk) 06:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Percentage
This can't be right, the USA can't give the most money as % of their GDP because their country is more than 20 times as big as the Netherlands but they only give 4 times more(from total) to charity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.144.100.44 (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you're confusing public donations(from a government) with private donations(from individual citizens). In the US at least, most charity comes from the latter. There are better statistics than the one cited on this page for private donations, but I can't find off-hand the link. 216.119.180.166 (talk) 03:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This whole article confuses government payments ("humanitarian aid", etc) with charity. When I look for charity, I am not interested in the amounts that governments pay to other governments, showing off their ability to forcibly extract money in an effort to boost their geopolitical status. That's a different article! When I look for charity by country, I only want the see the larger and much harder numbers to count: the by-nation figures for individual donations to all foreign (and separately, domestic) charitable causes, where no force is involved. – RVJ (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Percentage given by private citizens, charity, depends on the poverty levels within a society. For instance, there is decidedly less need in e.g. Sweden than in the U.S. for charity, since much less poverty due to the distribution of wealth by income taxes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.204.149.177 (talk) 13:14, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Bad source
The Cafonline list looks really strange to me, and it counts just a handful of countries. I doubt it has been calculated in a systematic fashion. I remember having seen much more reliable figures on this, by academic economists and for many countries, but I can't recall from where. A better source would be very useful for private charity. Perhaps the OECD has some numbers? Koyos (talk) 23:04, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Missing A Crucial Statistic?
I am interested in charitable giving from citizens, per capita, by country. I am not interested in government giving. So when Sweden gives a total of 4 billion to charity, nothing in this article differentiates between how much of that 4 billion is from the government, and how much comes from the donations of individuals. I want to know countries that have the most generous citizens, not the most generous Big Governments. Does this make sense? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.191.86 (talk) 00:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe total private donations in the US is about 300 billion, and roughly double the nearest european country whether normalized by gdp or however else. So the ranking there is no contest.

The title for the page is what's bad here given that they only use data for a small fraction of overall charitable giving. 132.239.135.196 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:53, 25 January 2011 (UTC).

Justification vs Information
Why does 'Official Development Assistance by country as a percentage of GNI', currently second in the list, have to explain how the preceding rating method (which lists the US at the top) is weighted?

It's admirably neutral description has a subtext of the first list being a metaphorical Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while the data it excuses is Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). See discussion for those topics for a like-for-like comparator. 78.86.116.106 (talk) 11:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Generosity per capita.
The figures that were cited were from a column showing official humanitarian aide, which represents only a fraction of total official development assistance. Additionally the table lists only the top 40 countries in terms of absolute humanitarian aide, meaning that if country 41 were to have a very small population but only give slightly less than Portugal(country 40) it might be 10th in terms of per capita humanitarian aide. I could replace them with figures from the same table, with total ODA excluding debt relief, but it would also run in to the 41st total aide problem and might qualify as original research, since it would require finding relative factors ODA/OHDA and multiplying, and have the new problem that countries with low humanatarian spending but high ODA may be ommitted entirely from the table. Jethro 82 (talk) 15:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Wrong title: Charitable countries or largest government donors
It seems to me that the title of the article is wrong. This is a list of the largest government donors of international aid. It is not a list of countries, just their governments. Nor does it list charitable contributions but rather lists official government aid, which is done out of both altruistic motives and national self-interest, as well as for political gain for the political leaders in the domestic market. By charitable don't we usually mean voluntary, and not tax money? And don't we also mean altruistic and not as an extension of foreign policy? Shouldn't a list of "charitable countries" also include say the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Toyota Foundation and other non-government donors? Perhaps a better title would "Largest donors overseas development aid" --Bruce Hall (talk) 12:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that there is a better place to bring this up -- some centralized Wikipedia discussion page -- but I don't know where that is and don't have the time to search it out. Can someone point me in the right direction? --Bruce Hall (talk) 12:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Found the page: Requested moves I will follow the instructions there for a controversial move, just in case. --Bruce Hall (talk) 10:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested Move (or Article Name Change)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Page moved to List of governments by development aid. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:19, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

List of most charitable countries → List of greatest donors of international aid, governments – The title of this article says "charitable countries" which is not accurate. I came here looking for how charitable one country is versus another, but this does not tell me. First, these contributions are not charitable donations. They are not voluntary and are only arguably altruistic. The money is not given freely but taxed from people who may not be willing to give it at all. Then, the money is given as part of a government's foreign policy; Altruistic motivations are often secondary to national interests concerns (though those national interest concerns may not always trump the altuistic). Altruistic motives might also be secondary (tertiary?) to domestic political concerns. Second, "countries" is not synonymous with "governments." A country, i.e. its people, might be very generous but decided to give directly and not go through their government with its politicians and bureaucrats. Like the Gates Foundation or Andrew Carnegie's donations If one is asking which country is more charitable, looking at how governments spend tax money is only part of the analysis. Third, the title says nothing about being donating internationally. The title implies that the article is about whether the people of the country are more generous then the people of another country, and that would include domestic charitable contributions, e.g. to churches, schools, and the Red Cross/Red Crescent. I am open a better name but this name should change. Bruce Hall (talk) 10:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose I agree that the current title is problematic and misleading, but I'm not thrilled with your proposed title. See alternative below.  --Born2cycle (talk) 23:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose I agree with the alternative title (see below). It's better than my suggestion above. --Bruce Hall (talk) 03:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Alternative title List of governments by development aid
List of most charitable countries → List of governments by development aid


 * Support. I don't think the word "international" is needed in the title - "development aid" is generally understood to be international.   --Born2cycle (talk) 23:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. This is an improvement on my suggestion. Agreed that international is implied. "Development aid" is a better term and parallels the acronym "ODA" for "overseas development assistance" or "overseas development aid".  --Bruce Hall (talk) 03:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

What's with the note about the EU being "by far the largest contributor?" Someone from the EU wrote that? The EU is not a country. Of course if you group together many countries you will come up with larger figures than if you look at individual countries. How can you say that the EU is by far the biggest contributor when the Northern Hemisphere gives much more than the EU does? Actually planet Earth is by far the largest contributor, but the planet is not a country, and therefore has no place on the list of countries that give the most aid. I'd suggest removing this pointless note. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.110.71.251 (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect list
Pardon me, but why is India above the UK? There are no valid sources and this does not seem accurate at all. It seems like a bad edit that Wikipedia missed.

Please look over it.

The US is #1 on this list, and India is not above the U.S. or U.K.

Sources: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/19/humanitarian-development-data

http://www.whichcountry.co/top-10-largest-donor-of-foreign-aid-in-the-world-3/

India is even on the top ten recipients of ODA: http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/totaldacflowsataglance.htm

India isn't even in the top 5 here: http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/oda2012-interactive.htm

INDIA SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ON THE LIST! And I could not find a 2013 site from the OECD in the first place!

Incomplete list
This list is for OECD countries only. Suggest the title be changed to reflect that. For instance, the United Arab Emirates gave over 1% of GDP in aid last year and it's not even on this list - yet would top it if it were! Alexandermcnabb (talk) 07:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Added preliminary figures reported by non-DAC countries, including UAE and Turkey, consistent with the way they are presented by the OECD. Whizz40 (talk) 08:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, saw that. Would it not be 'fairer' to incorporate both DAC and non-DAC lists to give an absolute ranking in terms of aid contributions - as all the figures come from/are ratified by the OECD in any case? Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The OECD make a clear distinction between DAC and non-DAC members in the sources cited, and describe the non-DAC figures as "preliminary". We should follow the source (important to avoid wp:synthesis). When the UAE and Turkey and the others become full DAC members they will be included on the main list by the OECD and we can reflect that here. Whizz40 (talk) 20:03, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Fine as far as it goes, but then the title of this article should be 'List of OECD governments by development aid' - as it is, it's presenting a skewed picture by omitting two major donors as well as the more minor ones, no? Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Added a comment, source cited, about the UAE's contribution being the largest by share of GNI. I think the article title, which was proposed and discussed above, is okay. Whizz40 (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

DAC vs Non-DAC
The data on non-DAC countries development aid given is presented by the OECD in the sources given alongside the DAC countries. Why remove it from the article? Whizz40 (talk) 16:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree totally. It's already odd that the list of governments by development aid given in wikipedia is based on the OECD only and so omits non-DAC countries, but the removal of the additional non-DAC countries is odd. Can we not agree to put it back? Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Following on from the discussion above, I tried combining the DAC and non-DAC countries as there has been some back and forth on this over the last year - it was changed back for the same reason discussed in Section 14 above. So if there are no objections, the current consensus is to show the DAC and non-DAC countries separately, consistent with the way they are presented in the OECD source. Whizz40 (talk) 20:34, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Article title
Perhaps List of countries by spending on development aid would work better as a title for this article? Since the article has been moved recently, I wanted to check consensus on the article title before moving. Whizz40 (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Propose moving this article to List of countries by spending on development aid if there are no objections. Whizz40 (talk) 13:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Data in Tables
I think this page would benefit from data tables. I'm gonna take a stab at it. For the first section, how does this look? --FeldBum (talk) 20:30, 4 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Tables could be an improvement, and remain easy to update. There has been some debate in the past about how to represent non-DAC countries which submit data to the OECD and those that do not (e.g. India) which you will see above an in the article history. Retaining some of the features of the current layout in a table format could help keep the article stable and consistent with sources. Whizz40 (talk) 20:24, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

China
Is there data on China? Per news sources they should be at the top of this list, but hard to find official data. Ies (talk) 00:03, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

EU isn’t a country donor.
—219.100.136.252 (talk)


 * I agree. Firstly, the EU is not a country and secondly, the figure is misleading because it includes EU members development aid that doesn’t go through the EU. The second point not only falsely attributes development aid to the EU but also makes that aid money be represented twice on the table. But most importantly the EU is not a country.  Please address these concerns which have been raised previously on the talk page and don’t simply undo other people’s edits. Williajm (talk) 08:32, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The EU is often included in lists of statistics by country in reliable sources (see for example, and in corresponding tables in Wikipedia articles. Often the EU is not ranked in the table, see for example List of countries by GDP (nominal). The table format in this article on country development aid donors was recently changed to remove the ranking of the countries and thus removed the distinction showing the EU was not ranked. So agree we need to distinguish the EU in the table, and clarify it is the sum of the EU Institutions and member states, but not remove it. Whizz40 (talk) 17:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That does occur yes though not in the source for this table. That source includes EU institutions, DAC-EU countries, G7 countries and non-G7 countries as memo items separate from the main table. They also don't summate members aid and show the aid funneled directly by the EU ~13 billion. Maybe a third table needs to be added for multi-country groups if they need representing on the page. Williajm (talk) 20:36, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree, and per WP:CALC it is acceptable to sum EU institutions and DAC-EU countries to present an EU number. The EU total is typically included in similar lists such as List of countries by exports, and comparable sums are made for other bodies such as List of Arab League countries by GDP (nominal). Whizz40 (talk) 08:09, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've moved it into the text. As noted, the EU is not a country (as required by the section heading) and the total figure that was stated was not from the EU itself (as required by the column heading of "Donor"). Moving it into the text also stops the total amount for donors being far more than the proclaimed 132bn. Maybe the best solution would be to change the section heading and references to 'countries', then put the EU institution number in, with "European Union institutions" in the donor column. EddieHugh (talk) 22:07, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * On reflection, I decided to act on my own suggestion. This includes the EU in the table, but doesn't distort the figures, include double counting, or refer to the EU as a country. The final 2 columns are blank because of the double (half?) counting problem again. Perhaps this solution will displease everyone, but it might just function as an acceptable sidestepping of multiple difficulties. EddieHugh (talk) 22:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Net?
The first section's heading is "Net official development assistance by donor". The first table is based on a source that does use "Net official development assistance". This isn't defined: what does it mean? I assume "net" means money out minus money in. The (few) sources for the second table suggest that this one is based on gross ODA, that is, just money out. This apparent discrepancy needs to be sorted out. EddieHugh (talk) 22:45, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The article is being sabotaged
"Manfred Phillips" is listed as the most generous country.

United Kingdom is not on the list.

Somebody should ban the person who sabotages the article and restore the correct version. Joreberg (talk) 12:11, 17 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The sabotage has been reverted. Thanks, Freddie.foster98  Joreberg (talk) 23:41, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Is the data in the first table wrong?
I checked the source indicated in the very first paragraph of the article ( i.e. OECD (13 April 2016). "Development aid in 2015 continues to grow despite costs for in-donor refugees" (PDF). OECD. Retrieved 29 April 2016.) and to my eyes it seems the data reported in their table do not match the data in Wikipedia's table. However, as I have no training in economics nor much knowledge about how (sources on) Wikipedia work, I'm not sure I'm right. Also, it would be helpful to indicate the year for each country. Maybe someone updated the numbers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MathieuPutz (talk • contribs) 10:27, 11 September 2020 (UTC)