Country_12_Italy_EN

Italy

Commitment to Development Index 2012

Italy

David Roodman and Julia Clark

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 27 of the world’s richest countries based on their dedication to policies that benefit poor nations.

Looking beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid flows, the CDI measures national policies in seven areas that are important to developing countries: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security and technology. This report reviews Italy’s performance on the 2012 CDI. For more details, visit cgdev.org/cdi.

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Overall Score

Italy’s 2012 CDI Performance n Overall rank 2012: 20 n Overall score 2012: 4.7 n Change since 2003: +0.7 (using 2012 methodology) Italy ranks 20 overall in 2012. Italy’s overall score is brought down by a very small foreign aid program, poor donor practices, high fishing subsidies, and its lack of support for research and development. Italy’s strongest contributions to development come from its openness to students and migrants from developing countries, and modest protection for domestic agricultural products.

Italy’s CDI Performance, 2003–12 2003

Aid

2012

Trade Investment

th

Migration Environment Security Technology Overall

0

www.cgdev.org/cdi

4

8

12

16

Italy Country Report

Aid

Aid quality is just as important as aid quantity, so the CDI measures gross aid as a share of GDP adjusted for various quality factors: it subtracts debt service, penalizes “tied” aid that makes recipients spend aid only on donor goods and services, rewards aid to poor but relatively well-governed recipients, and penalizes overloading poor governments with many small projects.

n Score: 1.3 n Rank: 22

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 investment in developing countries.

n Score: 5.4 n Rank: 10 Strengths

Weaknesses - Low net aid volume as a share of the economy (0.14%; rank: 22) - Large share of tied or partially tied aid (45.2%; rank: 20) - Allows project proliferation; small average project size (rank: 19) - Small amount of private charitable giving attributable to tax policy (rank as a share of GDP: 17)

- Political risk insurance agency provides wide coverage and screens potential projects for violations of human, labor and environmental rights - Employs tax treaties to prevent double taxation of corporate profits earned abroad - Particularly active in Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), including support for the Multi-Donor Trust Fund facility.

Weaknesses - Limited prosecution of home-country bribe payers

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.

n Score: 5.7 n Rank: 9 Strengths - Low tariffs on textiles (6.4% of the value of imports; rank: 3) - Low tariffs on apparel (6.4% of the value of imports; rank: 3) - High level of manufactures imports from poorer countries (10.1% of GDP per capita; rank: 4)

Migration

The movement of people from poor to rich countries provides unskilled immigrants with jobs, income and knowledge. This increases the flow of money sent home by migrants abroad and the transfer of skills when the migrants return.

n Score: 4.7 n Rank: 15 Strengths - Large share of foreign students from developing countries (79.8%; rank: 7) - Large number of immigrants from developing countries entering Italy (rank by share of population: 7)

Weaknesses - Only a small increase during the 1990s in the number of unskilled immigrants living in Italy (rank by share of population: 18) - Bears small share of the burden of refugees during humanitarian crises (rank: 18)

Center for Global Development

Italy Country Report

www.cgdev.org/cdi

Environment

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

n Score: 6.7 n Rank: 14

Technology

Rich countries contribute to development through the creation and dissemination of new technologies. The CDI captures this by measuring government support for R&D and penalizing strong intellectual property rights regimes that limit the dissemination of new technologies to poor countries.

n Score: 4.2 n Rank: 22

Strengths - Low tropical timber imports ($7.15 per capita equivalent: rank: 4) - High compliance with mandatory reporting requirements under multilateral environmental agreements relating to biodiversity (rank: 6)

Strengths - Small share of government R&D expenditure on defense (0.7%; rank: 11)

Weaknesses

Weaknesses - Greenhouse gas emissions grew almost as fast as GDP over the last decade (average annual growth rate/GDP, –1.8%; rank: 21) - High fishing subsidies ($1.12 per person; Rank: 21)

Security

Since security is a prerequisite for development, the CDI rewards contributions to internationally sanctioned peacekeeping operations and forcible humanitarian interventions, military protection of global sea lanes, and participation in international security treaties. It also penalizes arms exports to poor and undemocratic governments.

- Low overall government support for R&D (rank by share of GDP: 21) - 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

For More Visit cgdev.org/cdi for the complete 2012 edition of the Commitment to Development Index. There, you can explore the numbers with our interactive graphing tool, view additional publications and background papers, and dive deeper into the CDI methodology by downloading our data and code.

n Score: 5.0 n Rank: 14 Strengths - Some protection of sea lanes vital for international trade (rank: 13)

Weaknesses - High level of arms exports to poor and undemocratic governments (rank by share of GDP: 18) - Small financial and personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping operations over last decade (rank by share of GDP: 15)

Center for Global Development

Italy Country Report

www.cgdev.org/cdi

Commitment to Development Index 2012 Country Denmark Norway Sweden Luxembourg Austria Netherlands Finland New Zealand United Kingdom Portugal Canada Germany Belgium France Spain Australia Ireland Switzerland United States Italy Greece Hungary Slovakia Czech Republic Poland Japan South Korea

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 13 13 15 15 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Aid 11.5 13.0 12.6 13.0 3.1 9.5 6.6 3.3 6.8 3.1 5.0 3.9 6.4 4.2 4.0 4.3 7.5 5.2 3.2 1.3 1.6 0.8 0.8 1.1 0.7 1.6 1.0

Trade 5.3 1.1 5.8 5.3 5.6 5.9 5.8 8.1 5.5 5.6 6.2 5.5 5.5 5.6 5.5 7.4 5.2 1.5 6.7 5.7 5.3 5.4 5.8 5.5 5.6 0.1 -1.3

Investment 4.7 6.1 5.3 4.2 4.8 6.3 5.1 4.3 6.3 5.2 6.1 6.3 5.3 6.1 5.9 6.1 2.9 4.4 5.0 5.4 4.0 3.6 2.9 3.9 4.1 5.2 5.6

Migration 6.2 9.9 7.8 6.8 11.7 5.5 4.4 6.4 4.7 4.0 7.0 6.9 5.0 4.0 5.4 4.2 2.8 8.6 5.2 4.7 6.4 1.7 0.6 1.3 0.6 1.9 1.3

Environment 6.8 3.2 7.3 5.5 6.2 6.7 7.4 6.2 7.2 7.2 2.5 6.9 7.0 6.9 6.4 3.8 6.5 5.8 4.3 6.7 5.9 7.9 8.3 7.2 7.4 4.5 4.2

Security 7.7 7.6 1.2 5.0 6.1 3.2 6.6 7.3 5.4 6.0 5.7 3.7 3.6 3.7 3.4 5.1 6.9 4.4 4.6 5.0 5.7 5.4 5.5 1.6 3.8 4.5 1.4

Technology 6.6 5.7 4.7 4.2 5.7 5.4 5.9 4.8 4.3 7.4 5.5 5.0 4.6 6.6 5.8 5.2 3.9 4.8 4.9 4.2 2.8 3.4 2.6 5.3 2.7 6.1 7.0

Overall Score 7.0 6.6 6.4 6.3 6.2 6.1 6.0 5.8 5.7 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.3 5.3 5.2 5.2 5.1 5.0 4.8 4.7 4.5 4.0 3.8 3.7 3.6 3.4 2.7

Change since 2003 -0.2

+0.7 -0.3

n/a +0.7 -0.1

+0.1 0.0 +0.7 +1.1 +0.3 +0.5 +0.5 +1.0 +0.7 +0.2 0.0 +0.2 +0.8 +0.7 +0.7 n/a n/a n/a n/a +1.3 n/a

The above table lists scores for each of the 27 CDI-ranked countries across seven policy areas. A country’s overall performance is the average of its seven component scores, each of which are scaled so that an average score in 2012 equals 5.0. The final column shows the change in each country’s overall score since the CDI began in 2003 (using 2012 methodology).

About The CDI The Commitment to Development Index has been compiled each year since 2003 by the Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent think tank that works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community. CGD senior fellow David Roodman is the chief architect of the CDI, and collaborators have included William R. Cline on trade; Theodore H. Moran on investment; Jeanne Batalova, Kimberly A. Hamilton, and Elizabeth Grieco on migration; Amy Cassara and Daniel Prager on environment; Michael E. O’Hanlon, Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, Mark Stoker and Jason Alderwick on security, and Keith Maskus and Walter Park on technology. The Index is supported by the CDI Consortium.

Center for Global Development

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