Presentations by Will and Anna
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November 18, 2009 at 4:38 am |
Some recommendations/questions we had from the presentation:
1. More communication
How do we have more communication between the countries involved in the IDP to ensure that local perspectives are taken into account for these projects?
2. Focus on major fundamental issues with lasting impact
How do we distinguish between fundamental issues from the minor ones? For example, the Millennium Development Goals have 800 items on their list of targets –> how do we decide which one to implement first.
3. Humanitarian over business/economic
How to get IDPs to focus more on the humanitarian reasons rather than business or economic reasons to benefit the developed countries or foreign investors?
4. Untied?
Can IDPs truly be untied? Can countries contribute without any returns for their efforts? Is it ethical for countries to ask for something in return?
5. Need to determine which groups are best suited for IDPs (varies depending on the project)
How do we determine which groups (NGOs, government, private firms, etc.) are best suited for a specific development project?
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Just some questions to start thinking =)
November 28, 2009 at 12:54 am |
Hey Steph,
Great points, here are my thoughts:
1. More communication: I think that there are 2 options here. Clearly, as we discussed in class, the 80:20 ottawa:field staff ratio of CIDA is no good. Most international aid agencies have an inverse ratio. Second… LOCAL GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS! Find a conflict zone and you will find capable and energetic individuals and groups, who will always be more invested in producing results then ex-pats.
2. Focus on major fundamental issues with lasting impact. I think this is where national expertise comes into play. Canada has (had?) a history of advancing child rights and promoting international law (with the creation of the ICC). Additionally, Canada is a major player in the mining industry and many Canadian firms have investments on the ground. Though the human security impact of this is ambiguous, this represents a long-standing commitment to community and country and therefore an avenue for meaning development work.
3. Humanitarian over business/economic. They don’t ever. Given that, how do you leverage resources from the folks in power to help out those affected adversely on the ground?
4. Untied? I think it is ethical to ask for a return, because you acknowledge that the person has agency and ability. I think what you ask is the question. Is it unsustainable debt that they have no hope of paying back? Or something really freaking cool: http://wrongingrights.blogspot.com/2009/11/update-dadaab-jobs-program-give-work.html
December 1, 2009 at 4:40 am |
I agree w/ Tanja.
Certainly, there needs to be more dialogue b/w international organizations and the local groups. That being said, I just want to point out that this is incredibly challenging to establish such dialogue in conflict zones. As Tanja mentioned people are motivated to produce results, but how does the international organization know which side of the conflict is the one it should get in touch with? How does it know which side is the right side? Who is the international organization to even make that judgement? What if there are security issues to think about when a decision is made? Often these security issues are barriers to the organization working in conflict zones.
As an example, think about the refugee population in Goma, Congo after the Rwandan Genocide. There were many different organizations working with the refugee population in Goma. Amongst the refugee population there was a significant population of genociders who were bullying the innocent refugee population. MSF found out that with its work could potentially contribute to the violence in the camps and therefore made the difficult decision to pull out of Goma. What I want to say is that things are complicated in conflict zones and it is difficult to make a judgement. Regardless of the nature of the organization establishing relationship with local groups is at times impossible.
December 1, 2009 at 4:48 am |
I want to use Tanja’s response to question 2 to expand on my comment in the class regarding the MDGs. As I mentioned before, one problem I see with the MDGs is that they are very distant from the domestic issues of countries. I feel that there is no point in having international goals when countries and communities have very different issues and therefore very different goals and solutions. I think that each country needs to have its own localized version of MDGs. Moreover, I feel that these goals need to be even more localized. e.g., the goals of ON may be quite different from the goals of BC in the case of child poverty. In other words, there is no one size fits all. Even though we will have a million goals this way our goals are going to be reasonable, well-researched and therefore possible.
What I want to say is that MDGs are distant from our problems. They are just up there and sound like slogans preaching a better future. But when you look closer at them they seem unreal. I am not gonna even start talking about the stupid time-frame.
December 2, 2009 at 7:51 am |
Just in case you were interested….
This is the Cranford Pratt reading I took much of my history of CIDA from. Again, I found the evolution of CIDA from human internationalist/advocate for NGO’s to big business middleman very interesting. I disagree slightly with Tanja. I think there can be a return to the way things were, it just cannot compete with business interests and all take place within a catch-all organization like CIDA.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=tdYv_N8th-4C&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=CIDA+1968+project&source=bl&ots=QCb6YSVNvF&sig=VPbH_iB3ZPlJGd3HLr8CWh8lLgc&hl=en&ei=onDuSorlDpOsswO60OnhBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=CIDA%201968%20project&f=false.
December 3, 2009 at 1:28 am |
Item #2 in Anna’s post is really interesting. How DO we decide which issues are the most important? I like Tanja’s comment regarding focusing on national expertise in implementing development projects. Looking at international development from a business perspective with NGO’s (or governments) as potential investors/firms lobbying for contracts, the one with the most experience/the greatest likelihood of being effective could “win” the contract…or project. That statement may be indicative of my lack of knowledge of the business world (go liberal arts!). That said, I think that Canada has an abysmal track record with children’s rights – we signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a positive step, and I would definitely rather be a child in Canada than in, for example, Rwanda…unless I was an Aboriginal child, in which case my living conditions could be shockingly similar. My general level of cynicism regarding Canada and children’s rights, and potentially “development” as a concept has led me to the conclusion that the only way to remain even marginally optimistic is to maintain the mindset that “every little bit counts.” We might not achieve all 800 items on the list of targets for the Millennium Development Goals…but I view the MDGs as a means, not necessarily an ends. They are “goals” and thus have an ends in mind, but I think the process in moving towards these goals can see both minor and major improvements in the lives of individuals, and create a space for important dialogue regarding what it means to be human…let alone an ethical or responsible human. The key is being active in the process, ie. less talking, more doing. To over-simplify an incredibly complex issue, “baby steps” are key. So in deciding which issues are the “big, fundamental issues,” try and have a positive impact along the way.
December 4, 2009 at 6:23 am |
I thought you guys did a really good presentation on this topic. CIDA is definitely an organization within Canada that I don’t think we should be so quick to be proud of.
I like how Tanja questioned whether aid can ever really be entirely untied – although some may question the ethics behind this, asking for something in return may not be entirely unethical. I thought this was a pretty good and telling quote from CIDA: “…Canada’s development program also promotes the interests of Canadians; contributing to Canada’s voice on the world stage, building long-term relationships…”. In any matter of foreign policy, I think there will always be an attempt to balance interests and values. Candians will say they value good governance, literacy, human rights, etc., but we will also always have our own interests (industry, businesses) to look out for. However, the extent to which we have done this is embarrassing: in 2005 70% of our aid was tied, with only the US, Spain and Italy with higher levels of tied aid. I don’t think it’s wrong for Canada to benefit from its projects abroad (in fact, we can then see this more as investment) – but the efficiency and intended benefit should not be compromised in order to do so. If the local population could buy its machinery from another country for a better price, then they should be able to do so without spite from Canada – Canada’s goods they supply in return should be given at a competitive price. In 2005, Canada spent 3 billion in foreign aid, but 2 billion of this stayed within Canada with purchase on goods and services, leading us to the question: is this a foreign aid program, or an export development assistance program?
Powerful domestic interests are very obvious within CIDA, as you two pointed out in your presentation with the example of the mining industry. Others have criticized the Canadian government/CIDA for the connection between development policy and their international security agenda – we can see this quite obviously with the significant presence in Afghanitan and Haiti. Personally, I don’t find this as problematic as many critics – it seems logical that development policy should support security policy – and find the link to industry more troubling.
Political conditionality for aid is also very complex – should aid be linked with a country’s human rights record, their voting record in the UN, the economic policies of the recipient country, their governance structure? All of these issues are problematic on a multitude of levels.
December 4, 2009 at 7:59 am |
I would also like to comment on Anna’s second point: “How do we distinguish between fundamental issues from the minor ones?” I think that the MDGs make a point of the fact in noting 800 targets that you cannot choose between these targets. It is difficult to say that people with AIDS should be given more precedence over people with malaria, or vice versa. It is so difficult, that one must focus on all. Really, if one doesn’t, how do you choose? Can one choose?
There’s no doubt of the complexity of the topic. And it might seem easy to say that if one cannot choose, to focus on all…but there are also significant administrative costs that come with focusing on all and also a time lag before results are seen.
Furthermore, there needs to be a strong cooperation between all countries that are investing money in the human capital of another country. It’s great for all countries to focus on national expertise, but dialogue needs to occur between all the stakeholders to confirm that all bases are being covered… and by bases, I mean issues. Projects need to overlap and complement one another to bring about social change.
December 4, 2009 at 8:07 am |
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December 4, 2009 at 9:48 pm |
With respect to the question of tied or untied aid, I recently read about Canada’s foreign aid to China, which is definitely tied aid but one recipient that I’m not confident we should be continuing to give aid to.
Apparently, from 2005 to 2010 Canada will give China 250$ million towards human rights, democratic development, environmental sustainability and good governance. These sounds like good things to spend money on, but when we consider that we are giving relatively small amounts of aid to a country with over a billion people and with the second largest economy in the world, well I just get a bit skeptical. If China really wanted to improve its human rights, good governance, democratic development and environmental sustainability, it has much more of its own money to spend (1.43 $trillion foreign currency reserves) than we could ever give it. Obviously, these issues are not China’s priorities, seeing as it has the largest army in the world and spends 30$ billion on its defense budget. It also gives foreign aid to African oil countries (obviously tied), which begs the question, why are we giving aid to a country that gives aid to others?
I think the answer has much more to do with political strategy than the possible impact it might have on the media friendly issues that Canada claims to be spending the aid on. I think it has more to do with just staying connected to China, a token gesture of Canadian goodwill, than our attempts at actually trying to get China to change its stance on human rights and democracy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be keeping ties with China, we definitely should. I’m just not sure that giving China aid is the best way to do that, especially when we could be spending that aid on countries where it might have a greater impact.
Untied aid? CIDA has made it clear that in Canada there is no such thing. I don’t think aid should be untied- Canadians have the right to know that their taxes are being spent responsibly and to some effect. But I don’t think we should be tying our aid to our economic interests so directly. It shouldn’t be, we’ll give you money if you do this for us. It should be, here’s some money that we expect you to use responsibly and in good measure. While we’re here, we might try to establish economic ties, but the money we’re giving you is not dependent on the connections we would like to make.
December 4, 2009 at 11:10 pm |
I think one area of discussion that we have so far avoided is that of debt relief. Poor countries are in especially vulnerable positions because they have to finance exorbitant amounts of foreign debt in addition to addressing the myriad of problems that they are faced with. Corruption in developing countries has made this problem much, much worse. Corrupt governments get billion dollar loans from the international community, and then spend the money on palaces, neglecting the needs of the people. Even if a new government has the interest of the people at heart, it will be unable to do anything about it because it must pay back the loans that the former government received.
As a strategy to alleviate debt, the HIPC (heavily indebted poor country) initiative was formed in 1996 by the IMF. The HIPCs are a list of 40 countries with a high amount of poverty and debt. Attempts to diminish the debt for the poorest countries have so far failed. Countries whose debt is forgiven then go on to borrow more to bring the debt level back to what it was previously. While there is agreement on the failure of debt alleviation in the past, there is disagreement about how what to do next. Some argue that debt relief has not gone far enough – that it needs to be a once-and-for-all measure that is not to be repeated. Others believe that debt relief should be conditional upon successful implementation of reforms. Should we just forgive all third world debt once and for all? The U.S. has the largest debt of any government, yet because it is sustainable Americans do not suffer. Is this fair?
December 4, 2009 at 11:22 pm |
I think Kyla’s point about introducing business models into foreign aid is very interesting, and I’d like to expand a little bit about it. The foreign aid bureaucracy acts like a cartel, giving mini-monopolies to aid agencies. This is bad for several reasons:
1. Developing countries don’t have a choice. There are no alternative aid suppliers, and they must either accept what aid is given to them or cut off aid altogether.
2. There is no coordination among aid agencies, which leads to wasted resources. This may not seem like a huge priority, but as an example, the Tanzanian government has to write more than 2400 reports annually for its various donors. Both time and money are at stake here, and market reforms in foreign aid would help solve this.
3. There is no accountability. Foreign aid projects are only accountable to politicians in wealthy countries, who might not necessarily favor projects that do the most good if they are sound less appealing to their constituents.
Foreign assistance agencies could put part of their resources into a common pool devoted to helping countries with acceptably pro-development governments. Governments would compete for the “pro-development” seal of approval, but donors should compete too. Recipient nations could take the funds and work with any agency they choose. The common pool could issue vouchers to poor individuals or communities, who could exchange them for development services at any aid agency, NGO, or domestic government agency. These service providers would in turn redeem the vouchers for cash out of the common pool. Aid agencies would be forced to compete to attract money for their budgets, making them more efficient.
I’m getting a lot of this info from a William Easterly article from another class, which I have the notes for but can’t seem to find the article itself. A lot can be said about the negative aspects of turning aid into a business, but it’s something to think about.
December 4, 2009 at 11:43 pm |
Andra, I think it’s important that you brought up the need for projects “to overlap and complement one another to bring about social change”. This is certainly something I don’t believe that NGO’s have been successful in doing – overall, there is significant evidence pointing to a startling lack of cooperation between projects. There is often striking overlap (in a negative sense) of project mandates – multiple organizations operating under different principles striving for the same ultimate end goal – but no communication between each other to find the most efficient way of achieving ends without overlap of resources and activities.
In regards to choosing which goals to focus on, I feel like this becomes a largely values based decision from governments if they choose to align their development goals with the MDGs. In addition, I think it’s also worth noting that although you value an issue and would like to help, that if you are not equipped to try to achieve certain goals, you should leave this opportunity to those who are. Specialization is not a bad thing – in fact, I’d argue that it will deliver more effective aid and achieve better results. However, I am not advocating a sort of monopoly of aid projects.
December 4, 2009 at 11:43 pm |
Ofcourse soon as I post this, I see Eric’s more articulated argument. Excellent.
December 4, 2009 at 11:49 pm |
The group that my question was presented was whether the Colombia mining project should be left to the private market to regulate itself or should CIDA step in. Several interesting points with respect to this topic were brought up, but the two main themes that emerged was a need for transparency and clarity both within CIDA and with the private markets involved in the Colombia mining project. As Dr McLean expressed, in the past decade the way CIDA has provided funding has been very unclear, disorganized, with no strong sense of clarity or transparency in what they were aiming to achieve. This has resulted in many issues including that of the Colombia mining project. Some items that should have been considered when engaging in this project include focusing on major fundamental issues with lasting impact, determining whether this was a humanitarian vs. business/economic motivation and whether CIDA was the best group to intervene in such a political issue versus the involvement of governments, private firms, and non-governmental organizations. In the future, CIDA needs to revamp it’s mission, mandate, and policy on what international development projects they decide to provide funding to. This is especially important in a time where innovative ideas like social enterprise and microcredit are emerging in the developing world as ways of alleviating poverty.