The Maltese have placed among the top three donating nations in the world, according to a global index.
Three-quarters of the Maltese donated money to charity during the month before the survey was conducted last year.
This placed the island third after Myanmar, which for the fifth year running ranked first in the international list ahead of Indonesia.
This year’s Charities Aid Foundation index includes data from 139 countries. Malta ranked 13th with an overall score of 48% in this eighth edition of the foundation’s World Giving Index.
This score is a combined average of the proportion of people who reported one or more of the following in the month prior to interview: helping a stranger, donating money and volunteering time.
Myanmar topped the chart that featured Yemen at the very bottom.
It is important to ensure that the groundwork is put in place to support and encourage a mass engagement in giving
The data shows that the Maltese scored 45% for helping a stranger, 73% for donating money and 26% for volunteering their time. Despite the low percentage showing that just a quarter volunteered their time, Malta still placed 36th for this type of altruism.
When it comes to the countries with the highest average scores over the past five years, Malta placed high, making it to the 14th rank. According to this latest World Giving Index, Africa is the only continent to see an increase in all three giving behaviours.
Sadly, it illustrates a global decrease in giving, following a high point recorded by last year’s index, in particular for helping a stranger. The proportion of people across the world who reported donating money in 2016 is the lowest seen for three years.
Every Western country in the top 20 has a decreased score this year.
Malta, New Zealand, the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, Iceland, Germany and Norway have each seen a decrease in their score of between one and five percentage points.
Scores for the continents of Europe, Asia and Oceania are lower than their five-year averages, while Asia specifically has seen a decline in all three giving behaviours.
In line with this index, a new campaign by Charities Aid Foundation seeks to highlight the potential for fast growing emerging economies, to drive a golden age ofgenerosity and deliver a sustainable development which works for all.
With as many as 2.4 billion people set to join the world’s middle classes by 2030, it believes it is important to ensure that the groundwork is put in place to support and encourage a mass engagement in giving.
“We estimate that if the world’s middle classes were to give just 0.5% of their spending – less than the average UK household gives and about the same as people in the Republic of Korea – that could amount to $319 billion in resources for civil society organisations in 2030,” CAF says in the report.