CIDA, Foreign Affairs combination not without its risks

Could change way $3.5B in aid is used

Sitting between the Gatineau office building that houses the Canadian International Development Agency and Parliament Hill is the Ottawa River, a real and symbolic line separating the foreign aid agency from Canada’s political centre.

To some, that separation has let the agency and its dedicated staff chip away at global poverty in an effort to make life better for the world’s poorest people without any undue interference for decades.

But to others, that distance has actually hurt Canadian international development efforts by letting CIDA toil in a world dissociated from reality while enjoying little to no relevance among both decision-makers and the broader public, which is why it has swung from minister to minister and priority to priority in recent years.

And just as CIDA’s autonomy generated mixed reactions, so too has the government’s decision to bring CIDA back across the river — at least figuratively — and merge it with Canada’s diplomatic and trade services to create a new Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

No one knows exactly how the change — which has the potential to dramatically alter the way nearly $3.5 billion in Canadian foreign aid is used, not to mention impacting Canada’s international reputation — will play out.

“It can go either way,” said James Haga of Engineers Without Borders. “There are real risks.”

The government maintains the change will not dilute Canadian efforts to eradicate poverty in the developing world, but rather strengthen them by providing clear direction and allow for the use of all tools in the federal tool box to achieve the task, including diplomacy and trade.

“Development now will have the full strength of our international presence abroad rather than just putting a few CIDA people there,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Friday. “The people there will be able to work as a team under the leadership of the ambassadors.”

Scott Gilmore, founder of the Peace Dividend Trust and a frequent critic of the aid industry, said business and economic development have become increasingly important to development efforts in places like Africa.

“The growth in Africa, it hasn’t been because of charity or aid,” Gilmore said. “It’s because of Walmart and supply chains.”

The Canadian Council on Africa, which serves as a liaison between Canada and the world’s poorest continent, says an increasing number of African countries have been asking for a coherent strategy for both aid and supporting business growth.

“Any meaningful strategy includes international affairs, trade and development assistance,” said CCAfrica president Lucien Bradet. “It is our hope that this new department will now have all the tools at their disposal to develop and effectively implement such a comprehensive approach.”

At the same time, the government says, it will make Canadian development efforts more responsive to the country’s own values and interests, including commercial interests.

Haga says this provides a real opportunity for development to become more central to Canadian foreign policy and international affairs.

“It actually brings (development) closer to the political nerve centre,” he said. “That’s a good thing. This is an opportunity for it to be right there in the mix.”

Anthony Scoggins, Oxfam Canada’s director of international programs, said if development became more influential in Canada’s interactions with the world, it would be a major advance.

“Could a concern about the poor enlighten Canada’s climate policy?” he asked.

But Scoggins and many others aren’t about to hold their breath.

They cite the government’s emphasis of Canadian mining activities, its environmental policies, its reputation as a laggard in terms of aid funding levels, and the appointment of Bev Oda and Julian Fantino as CIDA ministers as indications development is not seen as a priority.

They note it has also severed longstanding ties with dozens of nongovernmental organizations and dropped many of the world’s poorest countries as aid recipients, and instead focused on middle-income trading partners like Peru and Colombia.

“Given the track record of this government, there’s not much hope it’s about efficiency and one voice,” University of Ottawa development expert Christoph Zuercher said of the merger.

Rather, they fear this is an effort by the government to use the nearly $5 billion in taxpayer dollars, supposed to go to helping the world’s poor, for Canadian business and diplomatic interests.

“I see it as a domestic move,” said Zuercher. “The message that is being sent is we’re abolishing an agency that has been spending taxpayers’ money in non-efficient ways.”

And they argue if the government truly wanted to strengthen Canadian development efforts, they didn’t have to abolish CIDA, which has been an integral part of the Canadian brand to millions of people in the dozens of countries in which it has worked since being created in 1968.

The government could have installed strong leadership and made a deliberate attempt to take development concerns into account to accomplish the same thing, they say.

Either way, everyone is waiting to see how the changes will actually roll out — and what interests will prevail.

Said Scoggins: “It really is fundamentally a political question in terms of what are the interests that prevail when priorities are set and resources are allocated and decisions are made within the newly created ministry.”