Kuwaitis rank well in charity

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 25, (Agencies): Kuwait ranked 19th out of 140 countries with a score of 48 percent in the 2016 World Giving Index released by Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).

CAF World Giving Index is a leading comparative study of global generosity that records the

number of people who helped a stranger in the past month, volunteered their time or gave money to a good cause. This year 148,000 people in 140 countries were surveyed as part of the Gallup World Poll which asks questions on many different aspects of life including giving behavior.

According to the index, Kuwait ranked third worldwide in terms of participation in helping a stranger with 78 percent of Kuwaitis saying they assisted a person they don’t know in the past month. It ranked 30th in donating money with a score of 48 percent and 83rd in volunteering time with a score of 17 percent.

On the World Giving Index ranking of other GCC countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked 10th with a score of 53 percent and Saudi Arabia ranked 41st with a score of 41 percent. Bahrain, Oman and Qatar are not part of the index.

On the three giving behaviors, the UAE ranked fifth with a score of 75 percent in helping a stranger, 14th with a score of 63 percent in donating money and 61st with a score of 21 percent in volunteering time.

Saudi Arabia ranked 10th with a

score of 73 percent in helping a stranger, 46th with a score of 35 percent in donating money and 96th with a score of 15 percent in volunteering time.

Although torn by civil war, Iraq is the world’s most generous country towards strangers in need, according to a new global index of charitable giving.

Eighty one percent of Iraqis reported helping someone they didn’t know in the previous month, in a global poll commissioned by the CAF.

For the first time since CAF began the poll in 2010, more than half of people in 140 countries surveyed said they had helped strangers — with many of the most generous found in countries hit hard by disaster and war.

Despite suffering instability and violence, Iraq has twice been ranked top in terms of helping strangers. Libya, with its own internal conflict, was second on the list this year and Somalia, embroiled in civil war for 25 years, fourth.

“I think that the lesson here is societies are incredibly resilient and that large scale disasters tend to activate a collective humanitarian response,” said Adam Pickering, international policy manager at CAF, which promotes charitable giving.