The Canadian International Development Agency will be merged into the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Thursday's federal budget announced.
The move finishes something the Conservatives began in 2006, when they remarried the trade and foreign affairs portfolios to emphasize that trade policy was a key part of their foreign affairs agenda.
Now that those departments have adopted CIDA, the family is complete.
"This enhanced alignment of our foreign, development, trade and commercial policies and programs will allow the government to have greater policy coherence on priority issues and will result in greater overall impact of our efforts," the budget document said in explaining the decision.
Rumours of CIDA's demise have been circulating in the not-for-profit sector since the agency's aid budget was drastically slashed in the last budget.
While its closure may not come as a complete shock, it's likely to create much uncertainty among groups currently receiving some of the roughly $3.9 billion CIDA spends each year.
The agency was created in 1968 with a mission to lead "Canada's international effort to help people living in poverty."
Its highest-profile projects in recent years were the rebuilding efforts associated with the war in Afghanistan and the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Both those projects paved the way, to some extent, for the merger announced Thursday as they were undertaken as part of broader foreign policy goals in each country.
But CIDA directly funds projects in more than 30 other countries, as well as spending millions through international partners such as the World Health Organization and World Food Program.
"Poverty alleviation through development assistance and the provision of humanitarian assistance in times of crisis are a tangible expression of Canadian values, which the government will continue to advance on the international stage," the budget document said.
While the name CIDA will be gone, the portfolio will still have its own cabinet minister and the budget said the government will codify his or her responsibilities for development and humanitarian aid, similar to the rules they laid out for the minister of international trade when that post was created in 2006.
The budget does not specify a cost for the amalgamation, nor if it will actually save the government money in administrative or program costs.
It will require new legislation and no timeline is laid out for that.
How much cash will still go to international aid is also not discussed.
Last year's federal budget ordered a $377-million cut in foreign aid by 2014-2015.
To achieve that, CIDA this year was set to eliminate programs in Cambodia, China, Malawi, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, for a total of $39 million in savings.
Budgets for aid to Bolivia, Pakistan, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa were being reduced to save $76 million.
Julian Fantino, the minister currently in charge of CIDA, has signalled in recent months that the agency's focus would change to encourage economic growth through support of local industries such as mining, agriculture and banking.
Those are three sectors in which Canadian businesses are actively involved abroad and Fantino has discussed publicly the role he sees for them in improving living conditions in the countries in which they work.
The budget adopts that philosophy.
"The mechanisms through which we are advancing our development objectives are increasingly more multi-faceted and more often now include our bilateral and multilateral relationships, trade and commercial interests and engagement with Canadian stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector," the document said.
"As the linkages between our foreign policy, development and trade objectives continue to grow, the opportunity to leverage each of these grows at equal pace."
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
Author: Stephanie Levitz
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