Belgium

Aid

Aid quality is just as important as aid quantity, so the CDI adjusts gross aid as a share of GDP for various quality factors: it subtracts debt service, penalizes "tied" aid (making recipients spend aid money only on donor goods and services), rewards aid to poor but relatively un-corrupt recipients (and vice versa), and penalizes overloading poor governments with many small projects.

• Score: 5.4
• Rank: 8

• High net aid volume as a share of GDP (0.42%; rank: 6)
• Small share of tied aid (1%; rank: 5)

• Weak on selectivity; large share of aid to less poor and undemocratic governments (rank: 18)

Trade

International trade has been a force for economic development for centuries. The CDI measures trade barriers in rich countries against exports from developing countries.

• Score: 5.8
• Rank: 13

• Low barriers against textiles (rank: 3)
• Low barriers against apparel (rank: 3)

• High total aggregate protection of agricultural commodities (rank: 13)
• High agricultural subsidies (rank: 15)

Investment

Rich-country investment in poorer countries can transfer technologies, upgrade management, and create jobs. The CDI includes a checklist of policies that support healthy and productive investment in developing countries.

• Score: 5.0
• Rank: 16

• Wide official political risk insurance coverage
• Provides official support for outflows of portfolio investment

• Does not allow domestic investors to take advantage of developing country tax incentives
• Allows foreign taxes as an expense instead of a credit

Migration

The movement of people from poor to rich countries provides unskilled immigrants with jobs, income, and knowledge. All of this increases the growth and flow of remittances while abroad and the transfer of training and skills when the migrants return home.

• Score: 2.9
• Rank: 14

• NA

• Small increase during the 1990s in the total number of unskilled immigrants from developing countries living in Belgium (rank as a share of population: 18)
• Small number of immigrants from developing countries entering Belgium in 2002 (rank as a share of population: 12)
• Small share of foreign students from developing countries (47%; rank: 17)

Environment

Rich countries use a disproportionate amount of scarce resources and poor countries are most likely to be hurt by global warming and ecological deterioration, so the CDI measures the impact of environmental policies on the global climate, sustainable fisheries, and biodiversity.

• Score: 6.3
• Rank: 9

• Large decline in greenhouse gas emission rate between 1999-2003 (average annual growth rate/PPP GDP, -2.4%; rank: 8)
• High gas taxes (rank: 8)
• Low fishing subsidies ($0.34 per person; rank: 3)

• High greenhouse gas emission rate per capita (15 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; rank: 15)
• High coffee imports (9.7 kg per capita; rank: 20)

Security

Based on the notion that security is a prerequisite for development, the CDI rewards contributions to internationally sanctioned peacekeeping operations and forcible humanitarian interventions, rewards military protection of global sea lanes, and penalizes arms exports to poor and undemocratic governments.

• Score: 3.6
• Rank: 16

• NA

• Small financial and personnel contributions to internationally sanctioned peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions (overall contribution rank over last 10 years as share of GDP: 16)
• No protection of global sea lanes
• Arms exports to poor and undemocratic governments (rank as share of GDP: 17)

Technology

Rich countries can contribute to development through the creation and dissemination of new technologies. The CDI captures this by measuring government support for R&D and analyzing the strength of intellectual property rights regimes.

• Score: 4.5
• Rank: 17

• High business expenditure on R&D as a share of GDP (rank: 8)
• Low share of government R&D expenditure on defense (0.4%; rank: 3)

• Low government expenditure on R&D (rank as share of GDP: 18)
• Low tax subsidy rate to businesses for R&D (-1%; rank: 14)
• Offers patent-like proprietary rights to developers of data compilations, including those assembled from data in the public domain