International
Development Assistance
ONE member meets a Canadian MP with a heart for Africa
As we continue our campaign to protect critical Canadian international development funding, ONE member Sarah Stone, from Waterloo, Ontario, reports back from meeting her local Member of Parliament.
As a constituent and on behalf of ONE I had the opportunity recently to meet with Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.
Mr. Braid had recently returned from a trip to South Sudan as part of his role as the Vice Chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association whose main purpose is to discuss trade, aid and strengthen ties with African parliamentarians. During this trip, and on previous trips to Africa, Mr. Braid has seen first hand the benefits of Canadian foreign aid. We discussed my involvement in the Griot Project, and my recent trip to Washington this past December to participate in #ONErocksDC – the lobby day on Capitol Hill and the White House Leadership Series briefing day.
I provided Mr. Braid with a Living Proof brochure and ONE armband and shared some of the issues that ONE is very passionate about including encouraging the governments of both Canada and the US to NOT make any cuts to their foreign aid budgets, the benefits of childhood vaccinations and ensuring that no child is born with HIV/AIDS by 2015. I directed him to the recent petition on the ONE website in which Canadians are encouraged to ask Prime Minister Harper to protect the Canadian foreign aid budget – you can sign the petition here.
I expressed my pride as a Canadian that my own government has been supportive of these issues as evidenced by the $1.1 billion in funding for the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, in addition to pledging to maintain current funding levels of $1.75 billion over five years for similar initiatives. I expressed my concern for any threat to the foreign aid budget and my desire that Prime Minister Harper would honour his commitment to the world’s poor and most vulnerable and not make any cuts to these important programs. Mr. Braid was appreciative of the work of the ONE Campaign and expressed his support of our endeavours.
Sarah Stone
ONE member
Bill Gates in Brussels: Living Proof in Action!
“Inspiring!” - “Deeply impressed!” – “Excellent!”
“The greatest speech I’ve heard in my eight years in the European Parliament’s Development Committee!” Gay Mitchell MEP
This week Bill Gates took Brussels by storm – a whirlwind 24 hours of meetings and events with EU leaders, culminated in his Living Proof speech in front of a full house in the European Parliament’s main chamber this afternoon.
The cause of this enthusiasm was a very simple, but effective message – aid works, and especially in these times of crisis, it is critical that the European Union continues its leadership as the world’s second biggest donor. Bill Gates made the case for continued EU investments in vaccines and agriculture and showed how development aid has helped change the world for the better in recent decades.
His visit couldn’t have been timelier. The 27 EU Member States and the European Parliament have recently kicked-off negotiations on a seven-year budget for the EU, of which €57 billion is at stake for future development spending. By showing that the Europe’s generosity has had a real impact on people’s lives in developing countries and by encouraging Parliamentarians to stand up and fight for EU aid in the next seven year budget, Bill Gates has helped strengthen the resolve of existing aid champions and reached out to many that are yet to become supporters of our cause. The new President of the Parliament Martin Schulz wrapped up his first address to the Parliament by reiterating the importance of development spending, “irrespective of political colours, the European Parliament will stand shoulder to shoulder with you”.
Today the EU’s top decision makers were reminded quite how much is at stake in the budgets they are responsible for. The ONE team, working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will make sure words are matched by action in the difficult negotiations to come!
Watch what he had to say:
For Bill Gates’ joint video statement with European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs, please click here.
Now is not the time to balance our budget on the backs of the world’s poorest
Guest post by James Haga, Director of Advocacy at Engineers without Borders Canada.
Extreme poverty, the kind that deprives hard working people of their full potential, is an immediate reality for many. It is a real thing, gripping the lives of billions of people. The number is so massive that, for most of us, it loses meaning. Truth is, these are billions of individual human beings with their own unique hopes and aspirations, no different from you or I.
The realities of poverty force decisions upon people that I find unfathomable – decisions that for me would be an affront to my most basic expectations of a good life. It forces people to choose between buying medicine for a sick family member or paying school fees for a son or daughter. These are real decisions for many people.
With this in mind, last week over 600 members of Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB) took to the streets of Canada’s capital city Ottawa, braving the snow and freezing temperatures, to send a clear message to the Government of Canada: let’s not turn our backs on the world’s poorest by cutting foreign aid spending.
Members of Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB) take to the streets of Ottawa
Hundreds marched past Parliament Hill holding white balloons, en-route to Ottawa’s Byward Market. Each balloon kept afloat a handwritten note expressing why foreign aid is important to them. Once we’d gathered at the busy market, our team popped their balloons in unison, symbolizing what Canada and our developing country partners would lose if we cut our contribution to international development.
Canada’s foreign aid is facing the prospect of deep cuts – upwards of 10% – that could result in a reduction of $500 million dollars in foreign aid. That’s a huge amount of resources – resources which, when used effectively, can spark a transformative process as people work to lift themselves out of poverty. But what does a loss of that much aid actually mean?
It means that Canada will be investing less in smart approaches to health and agricultural challenges in the developing world, such as training for thousands of rural health care workers in Tanzania. It means turning our backs on the true champions of development – local leaders – who possess in abundance the passion, intellect and perseverance required to strengthen their communities, but often lack adequate resources to do so. And it means tarnishing our own position of leadership in the world – a position that is not only a beacon for Canadian values in the international community, but also serves to develop strategic, non-aid relationships with developing economies in order to maintain Canada’s own position of global prosperity.
At a time when Canada is navigating the global financial crisis better than almost all rich countries, EWB and ONE members are united in saying: now is not the time to balance our budget on the backs of the world’s poorest.
Please join us today in calling on the Canadian government to protect critical international development funding.
2012 – A Year for British Leadership on International Development
Making the case for UK leadership on international development is never straight-forward but foreign policy is even more likely to be overlooked in times of domestic economic pain. All too often the development debate degenerates into reductive arguments for and against aid. This is a shame. The UK leads much of the world in effective development policy, and has maintained the resources needed to deliver long-term results that help some of the poorest people in the world. This leadership should be celebrated, not least because it is also firmly in the national interest.
Somalia is a good example of this. What happens in Somalia affects us in Britain. The issues are deeper than just the moral outrage we felt last summer when famine returned to the country, and when Britons dug deeper than ever before to help the millions of people suffering the effects of a devastating food crisis. We are also impacted when ships are attacked in the Gulf of Aden by pirates, terrorists exploit the vacuum in law enforcement and effective governance, and instability spreads to neighbouring countries. The UK government has correctly identified Somalia as a foreign policy priority for those reasons and will host a conference in February to mobilise support for a Somali-led plan, supported by the international community, to get the country back on track. Central to that should be a coordinated multi-year push on long-term agricultural support to ensure the 2011 famine is the last in human history.
UK leadership is also needed to bolster the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, which remains an essential vehicle for delivering improvements in global health and for driving momentum in the effort to achieve the beginning of the end of AIDS. Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has voiced his support, but for now a significant funding gap has left new programmes on hold until 2014. In 2012 we are looking to the UK to double its annual contribution to the Fund. This could pay for over a million anti-malarial bednets and treat 400,000 malaria and TB patients, while closing the funding gap by a quarter and intensifying pressure on the US and Australia to step up their own commitments. A UK push on family planning later in the year will provide an opportunity to end the tip-toeing around the controversial issue of population, and will further solidify the UK as a global leader on maternal and child health.
However, 2012 will be about far more than securing improved outcomes in health and agriculture. The UK finds itself in a uniquely strong position to push forward reforms that will help developing country governments make the most of their own resources. The UK will co-chair two key international bodies: the Open Government Partnership and the G20 working group on anti-corruption. In both cases the UK needs to win support for coordinated moves to tackle the housing of stolen assets that have been hidden away abroad by corrupt leaders, a clampdown on corporations who don’t pay fair taxes in developing countries, and establishing norms for open and transparent government budget processes.
Central to the vital work to improve transparency is a new European law to force oil, gas, mining and forestry companies to publish the payments they make for every project in every country they operate. This will shine a light on a previously murky business, and empower civil society with the information they need to hold corporations and governments accountable. The UK has supported the European proposals so far, but it needs to play a vocal role in Brussels to counteract fierce lobbying from oil companies determined to maintain secrecy.
If the UK is to carry the weight it needs to make the most of these opportunities for international leverage, it is vital that it continues its principled promise-keeping on overseas aid. Legislation will shortly be introduced in Parliament to fix spending at the UN-agreed target of 0.7% of national income. This will catapult the issue up the political agenda. The short-termists will argue we need the money to close our budget deficit, but recent polls show the majority of Brits support this policy. Even so, we’ll need all who have supported this policy from the days of Make Poverty History and before – businesses, faith leaders, military figures, charity workers and ordinary citizens – to speak out and make it clear that aid remains a sound investment as well as being resolutely the right thing to do. Amongst many other things spending 0.7% of GNI on aid will allow us to put 16 million children in school over the next four years. It will also stabilise fragile states, build markets for British companies and contribute to Briton’s soft power globally.
The reality is that pulling up the drawbridge and abandoning a position of strength on international issues in 2012 would be a poor strategic choice for Britain. A holistic set of policies that are in the common interest of both UK citizens and some of the poorest people in the world are well within our reach. In an Olympic year when the government is encouraging us to consider what is GREAT about Britain, the UK’s contribution to the fight against global poverty should be front and centre.
Save Canadian Aid
At around just 2% of the annual federal budget, Canadian foreign aid is achieving real results in the lives of the world’s poor. From providing life-saving vaccines and treatment for deadly diseases, providing food aid to reduce starvation, to investing in agriculture and farming to fight poverty and hunger, it is making a massive difference.
But Canada’s spending on international development has been frozen for some time, and there are now discussions to cut that budget even more as the government looks for ways to reduce the deficit.
Please join me in calling on the Canadian government to protect critical international development funding.
The petition reads:
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
As you make what are difficult choices for the 2012-2013 federal budget, please protect critical international development funding that saves lives and helps the world’s poor pull themselves out of poverty.
Cuts to programs that fight global poverty won’t balance the budget, but they will risk slowing progress on Canada’s international development priorities and the success of existing programs that make a real difference to people in developing countries.
Please join me in taking action today.
Thanks for all you do.
Protecting Canada’s Aid Budget
Guest post by James Haga from Engineers without Borders Canada.
Canadian foreign aid can be truly transformational when used in a smart way – it can save lives, help put children through school, and create the opportunities needed for millions of people to lift themselves out of poverty.
Consider, for example, the impact of Canada’s leadership at the 2010 G8 Summit. By drawing the attention of world leaders and shining a spotlight on the critical and under-served issue of maternal, newborn and child health, over $7 billion in new funding has been secured for these programs, resulting in a healthier, more productive future for millions of people. To help ensure international donors follow through on their commitments to developing countries and maximize value for money, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper serves as co-chair of the UN Commission on Accountability and Transparency.
In recent years, Canada’s premier development agency CIDA has committed to important measures to make Canada’s foreign aid more efficient, focused and accountable. Most recently, the Minister of International Cooperation, the Honourable Bev Oda, announced that Canada has joined the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), a commendable move that will strengthen the transparency of information on Canadian aid.
While these concrete steps have resulted in Canada accomplishing more with its existing aid, it’s currently unclear what effect the global economic uncertainty will have on future aid spending. In view of the Government of Canada’s commitment to reigning in their deficit, the 2012-2013 foreign aid budget runs the risk of being sharply reduced.
This is why ONE and Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB) have teamed up to ask that Canada’s effective foreign aid spending be spared from looming cuts. In advance of the final budget being presented in early March, 2012, we’ll be working with our members across the country to ask that Canada fulfill its responsibility to the world’s poor by maintaining its current aid spending.
- James Haga
Success – down to you
I’m really pleased to share some good news: you’ve contributed to another successful campaign! Thanks to pressure from you and 65,000 others who signed our transparency petition, governments have taken a giant step forward toward making sure aid money has the greatest possible impact on reducing poverty. This means that in poor countries around the world aid spending will help more lives be saved, more kids get the chance to go to school, and more families lift themselves out of grinding poverty.
Together with our friends at Publish What You Fund, ONE presented a petition to governments meeting in South Korea last week demanding that they publish the details of the aid money they donate. And the pressure worked. Many donor governments and institutions published information about their aid spending while others, including the world’s largest donor, the United States, signed up to an international agreement committing to do so.
ONE’s Alan Hudson and Sara Messer present the Make Aid Transparent petition to UK Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, along with Karin Christiansen of Publish What You Fund and other partners.
This is a vital development. Aid donors will be able to coordinate with each other, reducing waste and overlap. Developing country governments and organisations delivering projects on the ground will be able to plan better, because they will know how much money they are receiving, for what projects and for how long. What’s more, citizens in these countries will be able to hold their governments to account because they will know what results the government is supposed to be achieving with the money it receives.
We already know that aid, when spent properly, delivers amazing results. For example, over the last decade, 46.5 million more African children have been able to go to school, and the number of people receiving life-saving treatment for AIDS grew from 100,000 to 6.6 million. Thanks to pressure from you the agreements made last week now mean that aid money has the potential to deliver even greater results over the coming years.
Busan: A Bang or a Whimper?
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness drew to a close on 1 December, with the Korean hosts able to celebrate the delivery of a new global partnership on effective development cooperation. Emerging powers including China and India have endorsed the document, a document that makes clear in its second paragraph that commitments that apply to traditional aid differ from those that apply to south-south cooperation, and that contains few clear and concrete commitments on making aid more effective.
For the glass half-full types, the conversation has been usefully broadened to consider issues that go far beyond aid and that involve new actors. Civil society had a seat at the table and the private sector was brought into the fold. For the glass half-empty types, the aid effectiveness gains that might have been achieved have been surrendered in the enthusiasm to broaden the conversation, or, perhaps, in the effort by some donors to avoid their aid effectiveness commitments.
ONE has been on the ground in Busan, pushing for greater transparency and accountability and a sharper focus on results. These issues – along with fragile states and engaging emerging powers – have been the primary issues discussed at Busan.
On transparency, there has been great progress. Firstly, the Outcome Document commits donors to making their aid transparent, in line with the International Aid Transparency Initiative. ONE has pushed hard on this, supporting the first-rate efforts of Publish What You Fund. Secondly, with a number of donors including Canada and the USA announcing that they will sign up to IATI – with the USA’s move announced by Secretary Clinton – information about more than 75% of aid will now be made public.
On accountability, the outcome document emphasizes that governments in developing countries need to manage public resources in ways that are transparent and accountable, and that allow and enable parliaments and civil society organizations to hold governments accountable. It also emphasizes the importance of effective institutions, a welcome nod to the fact that aid and development effectiveness are political as well as technical matters. These encouraging words on accountability will need to be given life through initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership and the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency.
Finally, results was perhaps the single biggest focus of Busan with speaker after speaker emphasizing that aid and development cooperation must be about achieving results that will, in time, mean that aid is no longer necessary. The outcome document makes clear that results monitoring should be country-led, and that further capacity is needed to be developed for citizens in developing countries to monitor their own progress and hold governments to account, which will be implemented through a global Action Plan to enhance statistical capacity.
The greatest test of Busan however will actually begin now, in building out a post-Busan global monitoring architecture with clear measurable indicators and targets that is inclusive of all actors, and holds all participants to account. It’s too early to say whether Busan will be remembered as a success or a failure. Over the coming months and years ONE will be working hard to ensure that Busan is remembered not as the last pathetic whimper of the aid effectiveness agenda, but as the first glorious hurrah of a wider more inclusive global partnership for effective development cooperation.
A Clear Win for Transparent Development
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness isn’t even finished yet but we can already log big wins for transparent and accountable aid. In US Secretary Clinton’s keynote address at the forum in South Korea, she officially announced that the United States would be signing the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), something that ONE has been pushing hard on in advance of Busan. As ONE’s US Executive Director, Sheila Nix said:
“Secretary Clinton’s announcement that the United States will join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) reinforces America’s leadership in making foreign assistance more transparent and accountable. Being open and clear about how the U.S. is spending foreign aid—where and on what—will help make aid more efficient and accountable to US taxpayers and will maximize resources to help those living on less than $1.25 lift themselves out of poverty.”
The US announcement followed on from another big announcement by Canada on Monday that they would also be joining IATI. The addition of these two major donors will bring the total number of IATI signatories to 26 and increase IATI’s coverage of aid to over 75% of global ODA flows.
This is great news for ONE members who supported the Make Aid Transparent campaign. On Wednesday at the forum the Executive Director of Publish What You Fund (PWYF), Karin Christiansen, presented the Make Aid Transparent petition during a high-level panel on transparency and accountability. 63,905 people signed the petition from over 180 countries, underscoring global public support for aid transparency.
ONE’s Alan Hudson and Sara Messer present the Make Aid Transparent petition to UK Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, along with Karin Christiansen of PWYF and partners.
But more and better information is useless if people can’t access or understand it to make aid more efficient and hold governments to account. In order to improve accessibility and make aid info more user-friendly, the Open Aid Partnership was officially launched during the High Level Forum. The Open Aid Partnership is an initiative started by the World Bank Institute and other partner countries to provide visual mappings of aid projects, allowing for better donor coordination and targeting of aid. It also provides the technology for citizens to give feedback on development projects through mobile texting and online submissions, allowing for real-time monitoring and accountability! ONE supports the Open Aid Partnership and calls on more countries to sign up and provide their aid data. For donors that are already signatory to IATI, this is the next step to put transparency into action and turn aid information into development results.
ONE on the UK Chancellor’s Autumn Statement
In response to the autumn statement from the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, ONE’s Europe Director Adrian Lovett said today:
“George Osborne’s confirmation that Britain will invest 0.7% of national income in overseas aid is good news. Our aid is saving lives and building livelihoods – and it is in Britain’s long-term interest as we seek new global opportunities for UK business.
“We’re obviously disappointed at the reduction in the scale of the aid increase, which is a painful side-effect of Britain’s economic performance. This government made a pledge not to balance the books on the backs of the poor. DFID’s current plans were expected to put 16 million children in school and vaccinate over 90 million in the next 4 years. We urge Andrew Mitchell to ensure that today’s news does not put these plans in jeopardy.
“The 0.7% aid target is a minimum, not a maximum, and we call on the Chancellor to confirm that just as aid may fall when Britain’s income goes down, so it must rise when income goes up. The government should now deliver on its promise to put the 0.7% minimum aid figure into law, so that as the UK economy picks up the world’s poorest also benefit.”
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Canada, Development Assistance