McLeod Group blog by Hunter McGill and Stephen Brown, September 18, 2018

Every five years or so, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducts a “peer review” of the countries that belong to its Development Assistance Committee (DAC). This year was Canada’s turn and the report has just been released. What did Canada’s peers have to say about Canadian development cooperation?

The aims of peer review are to examine critically a country’s development cooperation policies and programs, ...

McLeod Group guest blog by Marc-André Anzueto, September 17, 2018 

“How shall we behave in a world we no longer dominate?” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland recently asked, referring to liberal democracies. Beyond the famous catchphrase “Canada is back”, the Trudeau government has remained vague on the ways Canada is going to face the crisis of the international liberal order. Following Canada’s current foreign policy priorities, the ongoing diplomatic feud with Saudi Arabia provides an occasion for Canada ...

McLeod Group blog by Stephen Brown and Hunter McGill, September 4, 2018

Ten years ago, the Canadian parliament unanimously passed the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act, following years of intensive lobbying by Canadian civil society organizations. Prior to 2008, Canada had not had any legislation setting out the parameters for its foreign aid. On the law’s tenth anniversary and as the Trudeau government prepares its legislative agenda for its last year before seeking re-election, the time is ripe ...

McLeod Group Blog, July 23, 2018

Corporate culture experts will tell you, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Making Global Affairs Canada fit for purpose to deliver on its Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) is only partly addressed by ensuring that systems and work practices are up to date, and that staff have the necessary knowledge and skills. Any dissonance in culture among the international development, diplomacy and trade staff also needs to be articulated and addressed.

Culture tells you what is ...

McLeod Group guest blog by Roy Culpeper, June 19, 2018

I first met Gerry Helleiner as a young professor, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto in the late 1960s. He was teaching a course on the role of international trade and investment in economic development – for good or ill. His teaching focused on the practical: on how and why developing economies actually worked (or didn’t work well), and what sorts of international and domestic policies facilitate ...

McLeod Group Blog, June 15, 2018

As expected, Donald Trump played the role of the skunk at the G7 picnic in Charlevoix, in keeping with the pattern he has established since becoming US president. Once the media frisson of excitement has passed, what will there be to show for the major investment by Canada in organizing and hosting the 2018 G7 summit? Although the meeting did not lead to major achievements on trade and security, progress was made on gender equality, ...

McLeod Group Blog, June 6, 2018

Marie-Claude Bibeau, Canada’s Minister of International Development, recently invited entrepreneurs, NGOs and philanthropists to partner with Global Affairs Canada in an ambitious new initiative to propel women’s rights on a global scale. Bibeau has been pushing for new funding and new ways of delivering. She wants to move beyond traditional aid groups to gain support for her ambitious feminist international assistance policy.

To leverage the four-way partnership, Bibeau promised up to $300 million. Jess Tomlin of ...

McLeod Group Blog, June 4, 2018

Canada has failed to live up to a key commitment under the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). When the UN General Assembly adopted the SDGs in 2015, they included the principle of universality, whereby all countries – rich, middle-income and poor – had an obligation to create and implement their own national SDG framework. The central objective of assuring “no one is left behind” was to be respected in ...

Blog by Stéphanie Bacher, May 17, 2018

In June 2017, Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, launched Canada’s new Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP). The policy places gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment at the heart of Canada’s approach to development assistance. What influence does this new policy have on Canada’s and particularly Québec’s civil society and their partners in the Global South? On April 18, a panel addressed this question, bringing together speakers from academia, ...

McLeod Group blog by Stéphanie Bacher, May 10, 2018

When it comes to human rights in Canada, the Trudeau government should brag less and act more. All UN Member States undergo a peer review of the human rights situation in their country every five years or so, known as the Universal Periodic Review. Tomorrow, on May 11, it will be Canada’s turn to defend its record in front of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. It will be the occasion ...