Index shows NZ third most generous country

New Zealand is the third most generous country in the world, according to an annual world giving index.

Indonesia was found to be the most generous, followed by our friends across the ditch, Australia.

The measure of global generosity, used by the Charities Aid Foundation, found Kiwis had moved up one place in the annual index since last year.

The World Giving Index, in its ninth year, is based upon data from Gallup’s World View World Poll, an ongoing research project carried out in more than 146 countries in 2017.

The survey asked questions on many different aspects of life today including “giving behaviour”.

The countries surveyed and questions asked in each region varied from year to year.

New Zealand is one of only two countries to have featured in the top five every year since the survey began nine years ago.

The other is the United States, which moved up one place to fourth.

Myanmar, the most generous country on Earth in last year’s ranking, fell to ninth place this time, largely because of a decline in the number of people volunteering.

Haiti and Singapore featured in the top 20 for the first time this year, while Libya was the most generous in terms of helping a stranger, where 83 per cent of people reported having done so.

The survey covered people in 146 countries.