Greece - Do They Give Money Away As Foreign Aid?

[Lynn_M]

Sounds ludicrous, but isn't that what all West European countries do, along with those from North America and Australasia, even though they are deep in debt?

Your thoughts, please

[ichkeria]

Rather than thoughts, facts seem to be the order of the day for this:
A quick Google reveals this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governments_by_development_aid

for 2013, with Greece 24th out of 28 within the DAC
A staggering statistic further down is that Estonia gave more than half as much as Russia. Size plainly means nothing :-)

[mallyh]

that list was an eye opener why does britain give more than germany and france when they are way bigger ? or am i reading it all wrong .

[Lynn_M]

Indeed, if you scroll all of the way down, Russia is the least generous of all, followed by Israel (who receive something like $5billion per annum from the USA)

[ichkeria]

A lot of it is to do with GDP I'd imagine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29

But that in itself is a poor guide to national wealth: for example, to keep the comparison going, the average wage in Russia is about half that of Estonia