While I am critical of development in general, this is a radically unfair move by the Canadian government. After years in Africa, Canada is now slowly pulling CIDA out and throwing its overseas development assistance cash into countries with far less poverty – and a political and economic potential that favors Canada. In any case, regardless of where Canada wanted to spend its money, building up a certain dependency on CIDA-linked projects and suddenly pulling out has innumerable affects on the local population. This type of politically-driven aid does unfair harm:
The real reason for the shift, of course, is a new calculation of Canada’s business and geopolitical interests. Instead of Malawi and the seven other African countries, where most people are so desperately poor that they earn less than $2 a day, a bigger share of Canada’s foreign-aid money will flow to middle-income places such as Peru, Colombia, Ukraine and the Caribbean, where Canada’s commercial interests are more attractive. Canada’s foreign aid seems to have become an instrument of its trade policy.
Ottawa insists that the “established need” of recipient countries was one of three main factors in the new priority list. But when eight of Africa’s neediest nations are dropped – in favour of places where incomes are much greater – most observers find it hard to believe that “need” mattered much.
I think we owe York a big thank-you for bringing this up. It was not until I landed in this fellowship that I got a general idea of just how politically-driven our aid department is.
