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Stephen Brown's Struggling for Effectiveness: CIDA and Canadian Foreign Aid is a critical and constructive examination of Canada's assistance to developing countries. Presenting a range of work by scholars and practitioners, this collection offers the most comprehensive examination of CIDA's efforts in over a decade.
The following is excerpted from the Globe & Mail article Fantino defends CIDA’s corporate shift
Canada’s foreign aid agency should play an active role in promoting the country’s economic interests abroad rather than limiting its scope to poverty reduction alone, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino says.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail on Monday, Mr. Fantino defended his plans for the Canadian International Development Agency to increase its engagement with the private sector, part of a deep philosophical shift for an agency that has long preferred to work with multilateral institutions and charities rather than corporations. And he said that CIDA, as one of Canada’s foreign policy instruments, should not shy away from championing Canada’s interests abroad.
“We are a part of Canadian foreign policy,” he said of the development agency. “We have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that Canadian interests are promoted.”
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Mr. Fantino added that CIDA should be open to funding projects that involve Canadian corporations as long as the work will help alleviate poverty in the developing world.
CIDA already finances several projects in Africa and Latin America that involve Canadian mining companies – a move some aid experts say does more to promote those companies’ reputations than to alleviate poverty – and Mr. Fantino has signalled that the projects could be templates for future development work.
“We’re not talking about pillaging and extorting,” he said. “We’re talking about a co-operative, collaborative effort not only with the governments but also the communities involved to make sure that they are part of the process.”
Stephen Brown, who edited a recent book on CIDA and teaches international development at the University of Ottawa, said the mining industry projects amount to an indirect subsidy for the companies, a suggestion both Mr. Fantino and the industry dispute.
“This is money that’s being used to obtain and maintain the consent of communities for the mining companies to operate,” Dr. Brown said.
“This should be part of [the companies’] bottom-line calculation … it should not come from CIDA’s budget.”
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