Despite billions wasted, more foreign aid needed: Oxfam
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Richard Foot, Canwest News Service Published: Sunday, April 25, 2010
Billions of public dollars have been wasted on corrupt and ineffective foreign-aid programs over the past several decades, but even so, rich countries must fix such flaws and increase their spending on development aid, says a new report by Oxfam International.
The report's release coincides with this week's gathering of international development ministers from the G8 nations.
Bev Oda, federal minister of international co-operation, will host her G8 counterparts in Halifax for a three-day meeting starting Monday.
One of the issues for discussion will be Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new foreign-aid priority of improving maternal health care in the world's poorest countries.
The initiative, whose details are still unclear, has become politically bogged down over whether it should include new funding for birth control and access to abortion.
"I haven't seen a concrete public explanation of what Canada wants to do," says Mark Fried, Oxfam Canada's policy co-ordinator.
"Hopefully Canada is trying to build a consensus on this with other G8 countries. I hope they'll confirm their belief in it this week, and put specific, new money on the table for maternal health."
Oxfam, an independent aid agency with decades of experience in the world's poorest regions, says rich governments need to drastically increase funding to maternal health care and numerous other social and economic aid projects.
In 1970, developed countries agreed through the United Nations to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on foreign aid. Oxfam says that since 2008 only Denmark, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway and Sweden have met that goal, and that the global shortfall in aid commitments now amounts to roughly US$3-trillion.
Canada spends 0.33% of its gross national income on foreign aid, mostly in Afghanistan, our largest aid recipient.
While calling for such spending to rise, Oxfam also acknowledges what a growing chorus of critics are saying: that foreign aid efforts are often beset by waste, corruption and outright failure.
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Older article in the same vein.....
John Ivison: Being poor doesn't cut it any more
Posted: May 20, 2009,
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Rock stars make fickle bedfellows for politicians, as Paul Martin could testify. One minute Bono was attending his coronation as prime minister and Bob Geldof was calling him “dude”; the next they were urging every fairy from Cork to Dunleary to curse him for his failure to increase the foreign aid budget to 0.7% of GDP.
The Conservatives are less dazzled by celebrity. Bev Oda, the Minister of International Co-operation, is not even attempting to curry favour with the U2 singer or the former Boomtown Rat. In a speech at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre yesterday, Ms. Oda delivered what Conservatives have billed as the “clearest articulation of aid policy in 20 years”.
She was blunt from the outset: “What I will talk about is not something that aims to please Irish rock stars.”
The goal is simple - how to make Canada’s $5-billion aid budget work better.
The strategy has been two years in the making -- since Ms. Oda became minister for the Canadian International Development Agency -- and has emerged in response to a range of reports critical of Canada’s foreign aid spending. For example, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee issued a study entitled Overcoming 40 Years of Failure, which concluded that Canada has tried to do too much in too many countries.
The committee, chaired by Conservative Hugh Segal, said spending should be redirected toward good government and responsible economic practices from health and education “welfare” projects. More priority, it suggested, should be given to economic development, including technical assistance and training, skills development and technology transfers. Funding should be directed toward agricultural productivity and privately-delivered micro-finance projects.
This more “conservative” foreign aid policy was pretty much what Ms. Oda unveiled yesterday -- and a lot of people are going to be extremely unhappy about it. The non-governmental organization community has already taken up arms over the government’s decision to focus its bi-lateral aid programs on 20 “countries of concentration”, including more countries in Latin America, where Canada is keen to expand its influence, and fewer in Africa. Now, Ms. Oda has signaled that Canada’s $1.2-billion annual multilateral budget -- money spent through NGOs -- will focus on three key themes: projects that improve food security; initiatives that increase economic growth rates; and, programs that secure the future of children and youth.
Being poor doesn’t cut it anymore, despite CIDA’s mandate being to support sustainable development in developing countries, in order to reduce poverty.
One of those who is already steaming mad at the new direction is John McKay, the Liberal MP, who last year saw his private members’ bill, the Development Assistance Accountability Act, passed with unanimous consent in the House of Commons. It set out a legislative mandate that required overseas development aid to be targeted at poverty alleviation.
After reading Ms. Oda’s speech yesterday, he was exasperated. “What the hell did I just do for the last two and a half years? I’m looking for the phrase ‘poverty alleviation’ but I can’t find it. There’s not even a passing reference to the will of Parliament.”
He said the $5-billion should be directed to poor people, not to bolster Canada’s defence or diplomatic interests. “This is ‘if you vote for us, you get our money; if you trade with us, you get our money’.
More on link
Article Link
Richard Foot, Canwest News Service Published: Sunday, April 25, 2010
Billions of public dollars have been wasted on corrupt and ineffective foreign-aid programs over the past several decades, but even so, rich countries must fix such flaws and increase their spending on development aid, says a new report by Oxfam International.
The report's release coincides with this week's gathering of international development ministers from the G8 nations.
Bev Oda, federal minister of international co-operation, will host her G8 counterparts in Halifax for a three-day meeting starting Monday.
One of the issues for discussion will be Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new foreign-aid priority of improving maternal health care in the world's poorest countries.
The initiative, whose details are still unclear, has become politically bogged down over whether it should include new funding for birth control and access to abortion.
"I haven't seen a concrete public explanation of what Canada wants to do," says Mark Fried, Oxfam Canada's policy co-ordinator.
"Hopefully Canada is trying to build a consensus on this with other G8 countries. I hope they'll confirm their belief in it this week, and put specific, new money on the table for maternal health."
Oxfam, an independent aid agency with decades of experience in the world's poorest regions, says rich governments need to drastically increase funding to maternal health care and numerous other social and economic aid projects.
In 1970, developed countries agreed through the United Nations to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on foreign aid. Oxfam says that since 2008 only Denmark, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway and Sweden have met that goal, and that the global shortfall in aid commitments now amounts to roughly US$3-trillion.
Canada spends 0.33% of its gross national income on foreign aid, mostly in Afghanistan, our largest aid recipient.
While calling for such spending to rise, Oxfam also acknowledges what a growing chorus of critics are saying: that foreign aid efforts are often beset by waste, corruption and outright failure.
More on link
Older article in the same vein.....
John Ivison: Being poor doesn't cut it any more
Posted: May 20, 2009,
Article Link
Rock stars make fickle bedfellows for politicians, as Paul Martin could testify. One minute Bono was attending his coronation as prime minister and Bob Geldof was calling him “dude”; the next they were urging every fairy from Cork to Dunleary to curse him for his failure to increase the foreign aid budget to 0.7% of GDP.
The Conservatives are less dazzled by celebrity. Bev Oda, the Minister of International Co-operation, is not even attempting to curry favour with the U2 singer or the former Boomtown Rat. In a speech at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre yesterday, Ms. Oda delivered what Conservatives have billed as the “clearest articulation of aid policy in 20 years”.
She was blunt from the outset: “What I will talk about is not something that aims to please Irish rock stars.”
The goal is simple - how to make Canada’s $5-billion aid budget work better.
The strategy has been two years in the making -- since Ms. Oda became minister for the Canadian International Development Agency -- and has emerged in response to a range of reports critical of Canada’s foreign aid spending. For example, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee issued a study entitled Overcoming 40 Years of Failure, which concluded that Canada has tried to do too much in too many countries.
The committee, chaired by Conservative Hugh Segal, said spending should be redirected toward good government and responsible economic practices from health and education “welfare” projects. More priority, it suggested, should be given to economic development, including technical assistance and training, skills development and technology transfers. Funding should be directed toward agricultural productivity and privately-delivered micro-finance projects.
This more “conservative” foreign aid policy was pretty much what Ms. Oda unveiled yesterday -- and a lot of people are going to be extremely unhappy about it. The non-governmental organization community has already taken up arms over the government’s decision to focus its bi-lateral aid programs on 20 “countries of concentration”, including more countries in Latin America, where Canada is keen to expand its influence, and fewer in Africa. Now, Ms. Oda has signaled that Canada’s $1.2-billion annual multilateral budget -- money spent through NGOs -- will focus on three key themes: projects that improve food security; initiatives that increase economic growth rates; and, programs that secure the future of children and youth.
Being poor doesn’t cut it anymore, despite CIDA’s mandate being to support sustainable development in developing countries, in order to reduce poverty.
One of those who is already steaming mad at the new direction is John McKay, the Liberal MP, who last year saw his private members’ bill, the Development Assistance Accountability Act, passed with unanimous consent in the House of Commons. It set out a legislative mandate that required overseas development aid to be targeted at poverty alleviation.
After reading Ms. Oda’s speech yesterday, he was exasperated. “What the hell did I just do for the last two and a half years? I’m looking for the phrase ‘poverty alleviation’ but I can’t find it. There’s not even a passing reference to the will of Parliament.”
He said the $5-billion should be directed to poor people, not to bolster Canada’s defence or diplomatic interests. “This is ‘if you vote for us, you get our money; if you trade with us, you get our money’.
More on link
