Relocating Aid – Government funds cut from sub-Saharan Africa

by Cameron MacIntosh

Academics from Carleton University joined the former director of Oxfam Canada to challenge the Harper government’s decision last week to cut development spending in sub-Saharan Africa.

Experts in aid and African studies took time out of a panel discussion on Friday to respond to questions about the latest funding announcement from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

CIDA, the development arm of the Canadian government and Canada’s largest aid organization, published a list of the 20 countries where Canada will refocus its aid spending in the coming years.

Until last week, 14 of the countries on CIDA’s focus list were from Sub-saharan Africa, there are now seven. Instead, the government has shifted much of its spending priority to Central America. Off the list are countries like Rwanda and Malawi, replaced with more developed countries like Peru and Colombia.

The government claims that trimming its list will allow for concentrated spending that will increase the impact of its development efforts.

“As someone who works on Africa… I’m definitely concerned about it,” said Blair Rutherford, director of the Institute of African studies at Carleton University.

“It’s imperative for us to put pressure on the government to demonstrate [that] Africa is, has been and continues to be important to Canada.”

Former director of Oxfam Canada, John W. Foster, criticized the government for not explaining how it had arrived at the decision to remove some of the world’s most impoverished nations from its recipient list.

“There is no overarching rationale, in terms of criteria, that has come through to me,” said Foster.

While the former head of Oxfam Canada, had no problem with the idea of refocusing development aid to different regions, he did question the countries selected by CIDA.

“Why Peru and not Nicaragua if you are going to stick to the Americas? And why Colombia?” said Foster.

For its part, the government argues that the decision to remove African countries from its list of recipient nations is part of a larger ‘aid effectiveness’ agenda. The government argues that the trimming of its list will allow for concentrated spending that will increase the impact of its development efforts.

Critics of the decision have panned this argument and suggest that the Harper government is more interested in ‘trade effectiveness’. They point to free-trade agreements that Canada recently signed with Peru and Colombia as evidence that Harper is using aid money to advantage Canadian contractors.

In parliament last week, Bev Oda, head of CIDA, argued that Central America has been neglected by Canada for too long. Other than that Oda, has offered little other explanation than that of ‘aid effectiveness’ circulated by other Conservative MPs.

Manfred Bienefeld, head of the school of Public Policy and Administration at the university and an expert on the panel, expressed a different view on Friday.

“The biggest thing [CIDA must do] is give assistance in ways that help build the kind of social and political coherence that is ultimately the very foundation of development,” said Bienefeld. “Rather than giving assistance, as CIDA increasingly does, basically for Canadian business to get access.”