McLeod Group blog by Stephen Brown, March 19, 2025
The timing was unusual. After being delayed by well over a year, the Trudeau government finally released its Africa strategy, a mere eight days before a new government was sworn in and probably only a few weeks before new federal elections are called. Many outside observers weren’t sure the document was ever going to see the light of day – much like the long-promised feminist foreign policy, which has been in the works for about four years.
Odd timing aside, is the strategy any good? Specialists in Canada-Africa relations seemed to struggle to say something optimistic about it, generally damning it with faint praise. David Black called it “a beginning” and “a step forward”, which he recognized was setting the bar low. David Hornsby similarly said it was “a good start”. Edward Akuffo called it a “significant milestone”, while admitting that it was disappointing and referring to Canada’s “half-hearted approach to the continent”.
Lack of government commitment
The main source of disappointment was the lack of any additional funds attached to the strategy. Bold, new action requires new funding – unless Global Affairs Canada is planning to cut in other areas? Apparently, it will keep doing what it is already doing, which means that the strategy’s drafters had to tie themselves in verbal knots with statements such as this one: “Programming under the strategy will be recalibrated to support delivery on existing priorities while providing a greater focus on economic cooperation and peace and security partnerships”. What a gem of bureaucratese! Clear as mud.
The lack of government commitment was reflected not just in the government’s unwillingness to commit a single additional dollar to the Africa strategy, a stark contrast with the $2.3 billion budget that was attached to the 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy. It was also visible in how, or rather by whom, the Africa strategy was unveiled. Whereas Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had personally launched the Indo-Pacific strategy, accompanied by a handful of other Cabinet ministers, the Africa strategy was presented by her parliamentary secretary, Rob Oliphant, without any members of Cabinet participating. The symbolism spoke loudly.
A robust new foreign policy?
Calling the strategy “a robust new foreign policy”, as the document does, is clearly hyperbolic. It is hardly robust (given the above), very little is new, and it does not constitute much of an actual foreign policy – which is presumably why it is labelled a strategy rather than a policy.
The strategy’s stated goals are, for the most part, hard to object to. Job creation, sustainable economic growth, promoting peace and security, strengthening democracy and human rights, fighting climate change and other global challenges… those are all important things. And they are also things that Canada already does in Africa. Variations on “Canada will continue to” get a lot of mileage in the document. So Canada is going to do more of mostly the same things, but without any additional resources?
Rather than spelling out in any detail what new things will be done and how, the strategy lists pages and pages of things that Canada has already done, including a box mythologizing “Canada’s role in ending Apartheid in South Africa”. (On Canada’s ambiguous role, see Linda Freeman’s book.) For what should be a forward-looking document, it spends a lot of time looking back.
It even dedicates a page to Canada’s record of peacekeeping in Africa since 1960. Unsurprisingly, it fails to mention that Canada is currently contributing only 26 staff members to UN peacekeeping missions around the world, including five police officers and no troops. Since the new strategy touts Canada’s Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations, it is especially worth noting that only two of those 26 Canadian personnel are female. Canada may have made many important contributions to Africa in the past, but it is also very bad at translating principled rhetoric into concrete action.
In fact, the ink had barely dried on the new strategy document when Canada renewed its military cooperation with Ethiopia, despite credible allegations of genocide and other war crimes carried out by that government in its Tigray region. How much is the strategy’s emphasis on peace and human rights actually worth? More broadly, will this strategy actually guide action, or will the Canadian government just keep doing whatever our political leaders want to do?
Commercial interests on the rise
The clearest thing that Canada actually intends to do differently, according to the strategy, is better integrate Canadian commercial interests into its diplomacy and development activities. That, combined with the emphasis on “innovative” and “blended” financial tools, is the most controversial content in the strategy. Together, they signal the increasing importance of the Canadian private sector in Canadian foreign policy. It is sometimes couched in terms of Canadian security interests, illustrated by the multiple references to “critical minerals” that African countries have and Canada will need.
The growing place of Canadian self-interest, albeit framed in terms of mutually beneficial partnerships – reminiscent of China’s usual phrasing – is worrying, especially in a context where the US is all but abandoning development assistance and major European donors are radically cutting back. Otherwise, Canada’s Africa strategy is mostly a damp squib. I don’t think it will make much of a difference one way or another, even if the Liberals stay in power. Rather like the feminist foreign policy, the government will probably invoke it when convenient and ignore it when not.
Stephen Brown is professor of political science at the University of Ottawa. Image: Prime Minister’s Office.