Who are the most generous donors to quake devasted Haiti?

Quite uningpressingly, the US sport the highest figure, but to get a correct measure of this one should look at the per person/per Gdp ratio of donation.

I already wrote on this in my personal blog in Italian a few weeks ago as Hillar Clinton compared Guido Bertolaso, former head of the Italian Protezione civile and now deputy secretary to Prime Minister Berlusconi, to a "monday morning quarterback" for his blasts on US relief operations in Haiti.

So here's a nice graphic run in the Guardian, and developed by ManyEyes (the interactive version is not supported by this platform may be viewed here), shedding a new light on the matter.

At a first glance Italy fares pretty well with 8,6 millions committed to aid Haiti.

However, things are quite different if you look at the per capita donations of Italians ($ per person). Italians celabrate their culture of giving and are actually pretty generous vis à vis cancer research and national programmes, but we happen to at the end of the line on the international level with only 10 cents per person (that's dollars! not even euros).

To put it briefly, we're giving more than Morocco and Japan, but about 10% of what Spain does (1 dollar per person), a nation which has beeen hit much harder than us but the financial crisis.

But Italy's stinginess in international aid is not limited to Haiti. 

In the last chapter of his 2010 annual letter Bill Gates, chair of the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the most successful worldwide charities funding scientific resarch as well as aid, spells it out loud and clear:

"Italy was at the low end of European givers even before the Berlusconi government came in and cut the aid by over half, making them uniquely stingy among European donors. These cuts will show up in Italy’s 2009 aid figures. Bob Geldof put it well when he said the Italian government is suggesting “they want to balance their budget on the backs of the poor—how shameful.” In June, I met with Prime Minister Berlusconi personally to make the case for more support, but I was unsuccessful. This is a huge disappointment since I still think the Italian public wants to be as generous as people in other countries".

Gates seems quite right as figures from charities like Telethon and Airc show Italians are traditionally generous givers. Appearently much more than their leaders, from whatever party they come as international aid has been cut by the current governement but also by previopus ones of different political sides.