McLeod Group Blog

TRUDEAU SHOCK SENSATION: “AID TARGETS TOO AMBITIOUS”

TRUDEAU SHOCK SENSATION: “AID TARGETS TOO AMBITIOUS”

McLeod Group Blog, May 12, 2016

According to a recent article in the Toronto Star, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has “acknowledged Ottawa has no intention of meeting the international goal to spend .70 per cent of gross domestic product on foreign aid anytime soon.” The article goes on to say that he is “scaling back Canada’s support of a key UN goal to boost international aid spending, calling it ‘too ambitious.’”

In fact what Trudeau said—a bit deeper into the article—was, ...

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BROKE OR BROKEN? HOW WE RESPOND TO EMERGENCIES

BROKE OR BROKEN? HOW WE RESPOND TO EMERGENCIES

A McLeod Group Blog, April 22, 2016

by Ian Smillie

In May the United Nations will convene the first-ever ‘World Humanitarian Summit’ in Istanbul, bringing together world leaders, NGOs, the private sector and others—5000 people in all—to talk about the growing humanitarian challenges of our time. The objective is to ‘enable the world to better prepare for and respond to crises, and become more resilient to shocks.’ A ‘major shift’ in disaster prevention is foreseen.

Maybe.

For months, the humanitarian paper mill has ...

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Foreign Aid Mindlessness – USAID Has Lost its Vision

Foreign Aid Mindlessness – USAID Has Lost its Vision

Guest Blog by Tom Dichter, January 7, 2016

About a year ago the U.S. government’s foreign aid agency (USAID) completed a new mission statement based on polling some 1500 of its staff members.

“We partner to end extreme poverty and to promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity.”

I’ve been working in international development for fifty years and I’ve rarely seen as mindless a statement coming from any entity devoted to promoting development (Recall that USAID stands for the “United ...

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Not Wanted on the Voyage

Not Wanted on the Voyage

McLeod Group Blog, December 21, 2015

Like a bunch of month-old puppies, the media are all over the Syrian refugee story, unsure whether to focus on missed deadlines or new ski jackets for kiddies getting off the plane. There isn’t much talk, however, about those left behind: the 4.3 million Syrians in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and the hundreds of thousands of Afghans, Somalis, Iraqis, Eritreans, West Africans and Asians trying to make it across the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean.

Of the ...

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Canada is Back. But How Far Back?

Canada is Back. But How Far Back?

McLeod Group Blog, Dec. 14, 2015

December 4, 2015 saw the first throne speech of the Liberal government. The speech carried the by now familiar ‘Canada is back’ message, one that has been very successful in drumming up international applause for the Trudeau government. The speech was very compact, essentially a set of headlines, recapping the Liberal manifesto and ministerial mandates, with an emphasis on current hot topics: refugees, re-engagement on climate change and Canada’s indigenous population.

It devoted just a single ...

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A Little Humility Please

A Little Humility Please

McLeod Group Blog, Nov. 30, 2015

The Centre for International Policy Studies  (CIPS) at the University of Ottawa recently released a report entitled “Towards 2030: Building Canada’s Engagement with Global Sustainable Development”. The report was produced by a working group co-chaired by Margaret Biggs, former President of the erstwhile CIDA, and John W. McArthur, an economist with a solid pedigree in a range of cross-cutting development issues.

The report is nothing if not optimistic about Canada’s proposed engagement with “global sustainable ...

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Robbing Peter to Pay Paul? Don’t Cut Foreign Aid to Meet Refugee Resettlement Costs

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul? Don’t Cut Foreign Aid to Meet Refugee Resettlement Costs

McLeod Group Blog, Nov. 23, 2015

Amid the excitement of a new government and the encouraging news of meaningful Canadian action to help in the global effort to assist refugees from the Middle East find asylum, there is cause for concern. Where will the money come from?

Canada’s spending on foreign aid has been dropping for the last five years. Under the international rules for calculating this assistance, the money Canada spends on supporting refugees during their first year here is counted ...

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Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!

Ding dong, the merry-oh!

Too mean-spirited? Ask Zunera Ishaq, the former English literature teacher and mother of four whose name (but not her face) was dragged through the courts and the media in the Harper government’s mean-spirited attempt to score anti-Muslim points as it limped into the home stretch earlier this month.

Ask Canada’s Aboriginal people, struggling with the issue of murdered and missing women, poor housing and water, bad health care and inadequate education.

Ask demoralized civil servants and Canadian diplomats who ...

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September Song: Political Will and Political Won’t

McLeod Group Blog, Sept. 24, 2015

 Oh, it’s a long long while from May to December

But the days grow short when you reach September

—September Song, Maxwell Anderson, 1938

In May, the NDP published a policy paper entitled ‘Canada cares: Our vision for international development cooperation‘. The overall policy was very good. Among other things, it pledged to reverse the dramatic cuts made by the Harper government. ‘Under the Conservatives,’ the paper lamented, ‘Canada’s ...

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So Long and Thanks for the Surplus

So Long and Thanks for the Surplus

McLeod Group Blog, Sept. 18, 2015

Through its most excellent management of the economy, the Harper government finally discovered, after six years in the red, how to balance the budget.

The surplus in 2014-15, we are told, amounts to $1.9 billion. This is seriously good news for a Conservative election campaign that seems a bit like a dump truck rolling downhill without brakes.

So how on earth did they finally do it? They did it in three ways. The first was asset-stripping. ...

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