India Commitment to Development Index 2025: India ranks 36th overall and 8th in Environment, highlighting strengths and gaps in Trade, Development Finance, and Migration for global development.
India Ranks 36th in Global Commitment to Development Index (CDI) 2025
Overview of CDI 2025 Results
According to the 2025 report of the Commitment to Development Index (CDI), published by Centre for Global Development (CGD), India has secured the 36th position overall among all countries evaluated.
This ranking reflects a mixed performance: while India excels in certain areas, it lags behind in several others — highlighting both strengths and challenges in the country’s engagement with global development issues.
India’s Strength: Environment Pillar
One of the standout aspects of India’s 2025 CDI performance is its strong showing in the Environment component, where India ranks 8th globally.
This high ranking is primarily attributed to India’s low per-capita greenhouse gas emissions, a factor that reduces its environmental footprint relative to more industrialised economies.
Such a performance underscores India’s potential role as a responsible global actor on climate and environmental sustainability — a fact particularly relevant amid increasing global emphasis on climate change, carbon neutrality, and eco-friendly development practices.
Areas of Weakness: Trade and Development Finance, and Other Pillars
Despite the strong environmental score, India performed poorly in several other key pillars of the CDI. In particular:
- In Trade and Development Finance, India ranks 38th — among the lowest in the index.
- Other weaker pillars include Investment (31st), Migration (36th), and Security (31st).
The low ranking in Trade suggests that India’s trade policies (tariffs, subsidies, import procedures, etc.) are viewed as less favourable for supporting broader global development, especially concerning imports from developing nations.
Similarly, the dismal score in Development Finance indicates limited foreign aid (or official development assistance – ODA) relative to what might be expected from a major economy like India.
Other pillars — such as Investment, Migration and Security — further reflect challenges in foreign direct investment policies, acceptability for refugees/immigrants, and contribution to international security or peacekeeping efforts.
Income-Adjusted Ranking: A Better Perspective
Interestingly, when adjusted for India’s income level — acknowledging that India is still a developing economy — the CDI gives India a better standing: 29th.
This income-adjusted rank suggests that relative to what might be expected from a country at its level of economic development, India is contributing reasonably to global development. This nuance is important for a balanced understanding of the overall rank.
Why This News Matters
Relevance for Aspirants of Government Exams
For students preparing for competitive exams (teacher recruitment, banking, civil services like PCS/IAS, railways, defence, police, etc.), global indices like CDI increasingly appear in general awareness, current affairs, and socio-economic sections. Knowing where India stands globally — the strengths and weaknesses — helps aspirants answer analytical and data-based questions.
Indicates India’s Global Role and Responsibilities
The ranking reflects India’s global footprint — not just economically, but in areas like environment, trade, migration, investment, and development finance. A poor performance in finance and trade underscores room for improvement, while the strong environmental ranking indicates a global responsibility that India is already fulfilling to some extent. This dual narrative is often discussed in exam questions related to international relations, global governance, and India’s external policies.
Highlights Policy Priorities and Challenges Ahead
The mixed outcome — strong environment but weak trade and finance — signals the sectors where India needs to strengthen its policies. For governance exams or state-level administrative roles, understanding these gaps helps frame debates or answers on trade liberalization, foreign aid, climate diplomacy, refugee/migration policy, and foreign direct investment.
Historical Context: What is CDI and How India Has Fared
The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) is compiled by the Centre for Global Development to evaluate how major economies contribute to global development. Importantly, CDI does not focus solely on monetary aid; it looks at a wider range of policies — trade openness, foreign investment policies, migration openness, environmental sustainability, security cooperation, health, technology transfer, and development finance (aid).
Historically, countries in Europe — smaller to medium economies with strong welfare states and global outlooks — have dominated top ranks. Larger economies sometimes lag due to relatively high per-capita emissions, restricted trade policies, or lower generosity in development finance.
For India, this 36th rank in 2025 offers a snapshot of where the country stands among global powers in terms of policy contributions to global development. Past editions of CDI (not quoted here, but as a general trend) have often reflected similar mixed results — occasionally doing well in environment or migration, but lagging in trade, aid, and investment openness — reflecting structural challenges for a large, developing economy balancing domestic priorities with global responsibilities.
Key Takeaways from “India Ranks 36th in Global Commitment to Development Index 2025”
| # | Key Takeaway |
|---|---|
| 1 | India’s overall CDI 2025 rank is 36th, reflecting a mixed performance across global development metrics. |
| 2 | India’s strongest pillar is Environment, where it ranks 8th globally, helped by low per-capita emissions. |
| 3 | India ranks 38th (among lowest) in Trade and Development Finance, indicating limited openness and foreign aid contributions. |
| 4 | Other weak pillars for India include Investment (31st), Migration (36th), and Security (31st) — pointing to policy gaps in FDI, refugee/migrant acceptance, and global security cooperation. |
| 5 | When adjusted for income level, India’s rank improves to 29th, suggesting that relative to its economic status, India’s contribution to global development is better than raw rank implies. |
FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the Commitment to Development Index (CDI)?
The CDI is an annual index compiled by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) to assess how countries contribute to global development. It evaluates policies across eight pillars: Trade, Environment, Development Finance, Investment, Migration, Security, Technology, and Health.
2. What is India’s overall rank in CDI 2025?
India ranks 36th globally in the 2025 Commitment to Development Index.
3. Which pillar does India perform best in?
India’s strongest performance is in the Environment pillar, where it ranks 8th, due to low per-capita greenhouse gas emissions.
4. Which areas does India lag in according to CDI 2025?
India ranks poorly in Trade and Development Finance (38th), as well as Investment (31st), Migration (36th), and Security (31st).
5. What is India’s income-adjusted rank in CDI 2025?
When adjusted for income level, India ranks 29th, indicating that relative to its economic development, its contributions are better than the overall rank suggests.
6. Why is CDI 2025 important for competitive exam aspirants?
CDI rankings help understand India’s global policy footprint in areas like environment, trade, foreign aid, migration, and investment. Such insights are useful for questions in general awareness, GS Paper 1 (UPSC/PCS), banking exams, and other government recruitment tests.
7. Which organization publishes the CDI?
The Centre for Global Development (CGD), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., publishes the Commitment to Development Index annually.
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