World Giving Index 2014

The UK is the world's joint-seventh most generous country, according to the Charities Aid Foundation’s (CAF) World Giving Index 2014, down one place from last year.

The index is based on data from interviews with more than 130,000 people across the world carried out by the polling company Gallup.

The survey of 135 countries gives three percentages, those who in the past month have given money to charity, volunteered their time or helped a stranger. For each country, CAF took an average of those three figures to find an overall score.

With a score of 64 percent, the number one position is held jointly by Myanmar and the US, last year's outright top nation. In third place is Canada, followed by Ireland, New Zealand and Australia.

Malaysia and the UK are in joint-seventh position with a score of 55 percent, and the top 10 is completed by Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago.

CAF's report says Malaysia's rise from 71st position last year could be attributed to its response to Typhoon Haiyan in the nearby Philippines.

The UK section of the survey states that 74 percent of people had given money in the past month, down from 76 percent in last year's survey, and 61 percent had helped a stranger, down from 65 percent last year; an unchanged 29 percent had volunteered.

The UK was in sixth place in 2013, and eighth in 2012. The bottom country this year was Yemen, with Venezuela just above it.

The UK's donation figure was the joint-fourth highest, tied with Ireland, behind Myanmar with 91 percent, Malta with 78 percent and Thailand on 77 percent.

The people most likely to help strangers were from the US with 79 percent, Iraq and Trinidad and Tobago both with 75 percent, and the most volunteering takes place in Turkmenistan with 53 percent, followed by Myanmar with 51 percent and Sri Lanka with 50 percent.

The report states that global giving has fluctuated in the past five years in line with the global economy; donations dropped in 2009 following the 2008 crisis before recovering in 2010, falling sharply in 2011 then recovering in 2012 and 2013. However, between 2013 and 2014, the proportion of people giving money dropped marginally.

To download the report visit www.cafonline.org/pdf/CAF_WGI2014_Report_1555AWEBFinal.pdf.