IRELAND HAS BEEN ranked in joint-ninth place among 22 of the world’s wealthier nations which help poorer countries most with their development.

The Center for Global Development ranks countries across seven categories including aid, migration, trade, technology and security to calculate an overall score in the Commitment to Development Index (CDI). The organisation says that the results are scaled to the size of the country involved and the average overall result is 5.

CGD said that Ireland’s greatest strength in its contribution to development comes in the form of “its high-quality foreign aid programme and its minimal arms exports to undemocratic governments”.

The orgnisation also cites Ireland’s low taxes on textiles and clothing and the lack of government spending on defence research and development programmes as strengths.

Some of the ‘weaknesses’ it cited in its report on Ireland’s commitment to development include the higher education rates paid by foreign students here and the country’s high greenhouse gas emissions per capita. It also pointed to high agricultural and fishing subsidies as negatives in its assessment.

It said that Ireland is one of only three countries surveyed which does not have a national political risk insurance agency and is among the lowest in terms of “government support for technology creation”.

The highest-ranked country overall in the CDI was Sweden with a total score of 7.7, followed by Denmark (7), the Netherlands (6.9), the US (6.4) and Finland (6.1).

Ireland (5.5) was joint-ninth alongside Portugal and Australia, while the UK (5.4) came in joint-tenth place with Canada.

South Korea (3.1) came in at the end of the CDI table, with Japan second from the bottom on 3.7.