Canada’s foreign aid program is made up of two distinct components.
The first, humanitarian assistance, or disaster relief, is meant to respond to immediate crises. Whether it is an earthquake, a tsunami, or a toxic spill, there are times when even the most prosperous peoples can be overwhelmed. In such circumstances, states like Canada step in to help.
Humanitarian assistance is unconditional and altruistic. Canadians provide immediate, short-term aid to any state – regardless of its government or its human rights record – to save, or at least to extend, the lives of innocent civilians caught up in a disaster beyond their control.
Assigning the former Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA’s) responsibility for humanitarian assistance to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) makes sense.
Development agencies are not designed for short-term engagements, nor are they best able to coordinate emergency responses that might well involve military forces and other government departments.
They are, however, uniquely suited to the challenges of development assistance, the second component of our foreign aid program.
The goal in this case is not to save lives that are at imminent risk so much as it is to assist a poverty-stricken society in its efforts to create a more sustainable future. It is understood, then, that results are rarely immediate, and things might get worse before they get better.
Successful development assistance programs are conditional. Sustainable poverty alleviation requires a long-term commitment from both the donor and the recipient to pursue strategies that will eventually result in a healthy economy and a stable society.
Surely, many are prone to say, it must be possible to help others help themselves and serve Canada’s immediate commercial interests at the same. Unfortunately, it isn’t, at least not purposefully.
Half a century of credible research has proven that tying development aid – in other words, providing “assistance” in ways that privilege donor priorities (like Canadian commercial interests) over expressed recipient needs – is both inefficient and ineffective.
Indeed, the Harper government has said this itself in the past – that’s why Canada no longer obligates recipients of its food aid to buy from Canadian suppliers.
And that’s what makes the Conservatives’ decision to transfer CIDA’s development assistance responsibilities to DFAIT such a great disappointment: this government in particular should know better.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Adam Chapnick
No comments:
Post a Comment