International aid groups fear cuts as budget looms
OTTAWA — Canada’s aid sector is nervously awaiting this spring’s federal budget amid fears of funding cuts that could require projects abroad to shut down.
“This lack of predictability is creating anxiety in the sector,” said Louis Belanger, whose group Bigger Than Our Borders advocates on behalf of major Canadian charities.
“The future is uncertain for a lot of organizations that are working in developing countries, because there’s a lack of clarity and a lack of transparency.”
Since taking office in 2015, the Liberals have pledged to keep increasing development spending each year – but emerging crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have significantly altered the focus of that spending.
Before the pandemic, the Liberals had earmarked an annual $6.6 billion in foreign aid. After the arrival of COVID-19, they boosted the target to more than $8 billion, first for programs related to fighting the virus and then to help Ukraine and its neighbours.
In late 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still instructing International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan to “increase Canada’s international development assistance every year.”
And since then, Trudeau has announced large funding allocations related to a UN biodiversity summit, a new Indo-Pacific strategy and the Global Fund, which tackles diseases such as AIDS.
Yet it’s unclear whether the Liberals intend to renew longstanding development programs or let them lapse in order to fund these emerging priorities.
For Belanger, it boils down to whether the Liberals build on the benchmark of funding that preceded the pandemic, or whether they see the current amount of funding as a new baseline.
“(They’re) seeing COVID as the exception, and that we need to go back to 2019 levels. We completely disagree, because there’s a series of crises that we’re seeing in the world right now,” Belanger said.
“You can’t tell me that the needs have decreased since COVID.”
Aid groups fear Canada will follow Britain in announcing cuts. London has long been one of the world’s top development funders, but is facing economic upheaval at home.
Meanwhile, a global focus on suppressing COVID-19 came at the expense of other health programs, leading to a sudden backtracking on two decades of progress in fighting tuberculosis, cholera and extreme poverty.