United Kingdom

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: 5.6
• Rank: 7

• High net aid volume as a share of GDP (0.39%; rank: 8)
• No tied aid (0%; rank: 1)
• Strong on project proliferation (less than 1% of U.K. development projects cost under $100,000; rank: 2)
• Strong on selectivity; large share of aid to poor recipients with democratic governments (rank: 3)

• Small amount of private charitable giving attributable to tax policy (rank as a share of GDP: 11)

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: 5.9
• Rank: 9

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

• High agricultural tariffs (rank: 18)

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.

United Kingdom Overall

• Score: 8.1
• Rank: 1

• Participation in international anti-corruption agreements
• Regulations to punish domestic bribe payers for actions abroad
• Provides official support for design of securities regulations and institutions in developing countries
• Provides official support for outflows of portfolio investment
• Policies to prevent double taxation of corporate profits earned abroad

• Political risk insurance eligibility limited to nationally-owned firms

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: 2.8
• Rank: 15

• Bears large share of the burden of refugees during humanitarian crises (rank: 8)

• Small increase during the 1990s in the total number of unskilled immigrants living in the U.K. (rank as a share of population: 16)
• Small share of foreign students from developing countries (45%; rank: 18)
• Small number of immigrants from developing countries entering the U.K. in 2002 (rank as a share of population: 18)

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: 7.9
• Rank: 1

• Low greenhouse gas emission rate per capita (11 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; rank: 7)
• Large decline in greenhouse gas emission rate between 1999-2003 (average annual growth rate/PPP GDP, -3.7%; rank: 3)
• High gas taxes (rank: 2)
• Low fishing subsidies ($1.68 per person; rank: 6)
• Small number of endangered species imports (rank: 6)
• Policy to regulate illegal timber imports
• Low coffee imports (2.2 kg per capita; rank: 3)

• NA

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: 2.1
• Rank: 20

• Significant financial and personnel contributions during interventions in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan (overall contribution rank over last 10 years as share of GDP: 2)
• Military ships stationed in sea lanes important to international trade (rank as a share of GDP: 4)

• Arms exports to poor and undemocratic governments (rank as share of GDP: 21)

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: 4.6
• Rank: 16

• High tax subsidy rate to businesses for R&D (10%; rank: 8)
• High government expenditure on R&D (rank as a share of GDP: 7)

• Large share of government R&D expenditure on defense (36.5%; rank: 20)
• Allows patents on plant and animal varieties
• Offers patent-like proprietary rights to developers of data compilations, including those assembled from data in the public domain