Millennium Villages Blog

In a posting on the Global Brief blog, Millennium Promise CEO John McArthur questions the Canadian government’s commitment to foreign aid and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

This week Canadian Development Minister Beverley Oda made a policy speech outlining Canada’s renewed emphasis on improving the quality of its foreign aid dollars. A focus on efficacy is commendable and important, since taxpayer dollars should of course be subject to strict scrutiny in advancing key development objectives in the poorest countries, particularly the Millennium Development Goals. But an emphasis on quality cannot be presented as a false choice against quantity, since that would distract from many urgent development challenges that need time-sensitive global leadership.

Perhaps most prominently, the rich countries as a group are roughly $35 billion behind on the support they promised for Africa by 2010. Canada is certainly not the worst performer in this regard, since it is generally adhering to its commitment to double aid to Africa, notwithstanding a downward recalculation of the baseline reference numbers. Importantly, the government outlook has been non-partisan on this issue: both Conservatives and Liberals have relied on the talking point that Canada should be praised for maintaining its commitments. As Minister Oda said this week, “Canada has certainly done its part and more” in terms of aid flows.

The full article is available at: http://globalbrief.ca/johnwmcarthur/2009/05/24/is-canada-doing-its-part-and-more/

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