US places 12th in aiding world's poor, report says

WASHINGTON -- The United States has significantly increased its foreign aid to poor countries but ranks 12th among the 21 richest nations in its overall performance in helping the world's poor, according to a widely watched annual report released yesterday.

Denmark ranks as the most generous country in the world, spending 89 cents per person each day in government aid and 1 cent per person each day in private giving, according to the survey by the Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy magazine.

The United States spent 15 cents per person each day in government aid to poor nations and six cents per person daily in private giving, the report found. The foreign aid statistics are based on 2003 data and do not include the outpouring of charity sparked by December's South Asian tsunami. The United States has pledged $950 million for tsunami relief, out of an estimated $12 billion promised by all Western donors.

The Commitment to Development Index attempts to measure how countries help the global poor, not only by their direct foreign aid contributions, but also by their policies on trade, migration, the environment, technology, security, and foreign investment.

The index penalizes nations that sell expensive weapons systems to impoverished dictatorships. But it gives points to countries that accept migrants from underdeveloped countries. In calculating aid totals, it subtracts interest payments made by underdeveloped countries to donors.

The index has proven controversial in the past. Following the tsunami, conservative politicians, activists, and others were outraged by suggestions that the US response to the disaster may have been ''stingy" and lambasted the foreign aid index and other studies that challenge the notion that America is the most generous nation in the world.

Critics argued that such studies do not give the United States credit for the billions it spends in military operations that provide global security and allow other nations' economies to flourish.

Responding to such criticisms, authors of the 2005 index used a revised methodology, said David Roodman, who heads the study at the Center for Global Development, an independent Washington think tank. This year's report gave the United States points for its military contributions to keeping the world's sea lanes open for global trade, among other things.