If you're wondering how the US's US$350 million contribution to aiding the victims of last week's tsunami stacks up against the rest of the world, here's a quick and dirty table of contributions per capita. Figures are sourced originally from
this Reuters story, updated to take account of later news stories.
(Actual table below the fold)
Country | Aid (US$ millions) | Population (millions) | $/capita |
Denmark | 16 | 5.4 | 2.96 |
Norway | 8 | 4.5 | 1.78 |
Spain | 68 | 40 | 1.63 |
UK | 96 | 60 | 1.6 |
Australia | 27 | 20 | 1.35 |
USA | 350 | 296 | 1.20 |
Canada | 32 | 32 | 1.00 |
NZ | 3.5 | 4 | 0.88 |
Saudi Arabia | 10 | 26 | 0.38 |
France | 20 | 60 | 0.33 |
Japan | 30 | 128 | 0.23 |
Netherlands | 3 | 16 | 0.19 |
Austria | 1.4 | 8 | 0.18 |
Germany | 3 | 81 | 0.04 |
This measures only government donations and pledges of cash, not assistance in kind, which can be useful on its own. And it does not measure donations by private citizens and organisations. The intention is to allow people to shame their own governments into gettign above the (completely arbitrary) US$1.00 per person barrier. Obvioulsy, some governments (including my own) have a bit of a way to go.
Idiot/Savant
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