Posts Tagged 'development assistance'

HomeTag: development assistance

The One We Would Write: A Mandate Letter for Canada’s Next Development Minister

The One We Would Write: A Mandate Letter for Canada’s Next Development Minister

McLeod Group Blog, June 16, 2015

You will serve as Minister of International Development Cooperation, with full cabinet membership, reporting directly to me as Prime Minister. As Minister you will:

Policy

  •  Rebuild Canada’s capacity to be a strong global development actor after a decade of institutional neglect and distorted priorities.
  • Develop programs within a broad made-in-Canada framework that does not rely on norms and precedents of G7 and OECD member states. Engaging the South is critical to Canada’s future well-being, its economic, political and ...
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‘NEW, INNOVATIVE, BLENDED’ – CANADA’S PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT FINANCE INITIATIVE

‘NEW, INNOVATIVE, BLENDED’ – CANADA’S PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT FINANCE INITIATIVE

McLeod Group Blog, May 11, 2015

In the 2015 Federal Budget, the Conservative Government announced the creation of a Canadian development finance ‘initiative’. Details remain scanty. In the name of ‘coherence and effectiveness’, the budget states that the government has established the new initiative to enhance private sector development, achieve meaningful development outcomes, and raise people out of poverty.

Despite claims about advancing ‘new’, ‘innovative’, and ‘blended’ financing by involving the private sector, neither promoting the role of the private sector ...

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Canada Balancing Budget on Backs of World’s Poorest

Canada Balancing Budget on Backs of World’s Poorest

Guest blog by Liam Swiss, April 22, 2015

Liam Swiss is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Memorial University in St. John’s. He teaches courses on development, gender, globalization, and research methods.

The latest foreign aid numbers were released on April 8. Globally, aid remains at near record high levels (US$135 billion). This is good news for the global fight against poverty. The numbers tell a rather depressing story, however, if you are Canadian. In the past ...

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REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK

REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK

McLeod Group Blog, April 15, 2015

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), has come up with a novel idea: asking Canadians to board a train that left the station months ago.

The ‘train’ is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have been under negotiation at the UN and around the world for the past two years. The SDGs will build on the 2000-2015 Millennium Development goals and will establish the most comprehensive set of development plans ever conceived. ...

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The Economy, Jobs and a Smart Foreign Policy

McLeod Group Blog, March 18, 2015

Every election since the beginning of time, it seems, has been about the economy. And a large part of that is about jobs. When politicians talk about jobs, they usually means jobs at home, but in today’s world, creating jobs across the street may depend on helping to create jobs across the world—not jobs that reduce Canadian opportunities, as so often has been the case, but jobs that do the opposite.

Lost in the din of ...

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Canada’s ‘Signature Projects’ in Afghanistan: not so bad after all?

Canada’s ‘Signature Projects’ in Afghanistan: not so bad after all?

Response by Ron Schatz to a guest blog by Nipa Banerjee

February 2, 2015

 On January 5, 2015, we posted a guest blog by Nipa Banerjee that was critical of Canada’s aid program in Afghanistan. Ron Schatz, who was CIDA’s Development Director at the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kandahar city from September 2007 to August 2008, has a different point of view.

I met with the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan when they came to the PRT in late ...

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Haiti Five Years On: Canada Loses Interest

McLeod Group Blog, January 19, 2015

 January 12 marked five years since the earthquake that devastated Haiti, killed over 230,000 citizens and rendered over three million people homeless, almost 30% of the country’s population. Since 2010, Haiti has received a great deal of media attention, been the subject of many promises of help (some of which have been honoured). It also experienced two major hurricanes in 2012 as well as an outbreak of cholera, believed to have been introduced by a ...

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Signal Failure: Canada’s ‘Signature Projects’ in Afghanistan

Guest blog by Nipa Banerjee

January 5, 2015

The NATO combat mission in Afghanistan ended in December, while Canadian participation concluded a few months earlier, in March. Seven years before, in 2007, the Harper government dispatched a five-person panel to review Canada’s participation in the war. Led by former Liberal finance minister John Manley, the panel noted that Canadian aid to Afghanistan was largely unknown to both Afghans and Canadians, and proposed that CIDA create ‘signature projects’ that could be used to showcase ...

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Ignorance is Strength: Good Financial Management at Work

Ignorance is Strength: Good Financial Management at Work

McLeod Group Blog, December 22, 2014

According to George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, ‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’ In the Harper government’s brave new world, bad financial budgeting is good financial management.

That’s the only conclusions you can draw from government departments that planned and over-budgeted so badly in 2013-14 that they were able to return $7.2 billion in lapsed funds to the treasury. Treasury Board President Tony Clement calls this incredible mess ‘a sign of good ...

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Out of Focus: Canadian Aid Merry-Go-Round

Out of Focus: Canadian Aid Merry-Go-Round

McLeod Group Blog, July 4, 2014

To the extent that any of them take Canada seriously as an aid donor, our ‘focus’ countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America must be tearing their metaphorical hair out. Long criticized by the OECD for spreading Canadian aid too thin and over too many countries, the Harper government cut the number in 2009 from 25 to 20. Out went eight very poor countries in Africa and two in Asia. Perhaps thinking nobody was watching, ...

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