Call for overhaul of CIDA strikes chord: senator

from The CBC

A Senate report that recommends the federal government overhaul or abolish the Canadian International Development Agency has found surprising support, says one of its authors.

The report, Overcoming 40 Years of Failure: A New Road Map for Sub-Saharan Africa, says that CIDA has failed to make a difference in Africa with its system of foreign aid.

"People have been really positive about it," Liberal Senator Peter Stollery told CBC News Online on Wednesday. "Oh my gosh. You would have thought I would have been killed by now."

The report recommends that CIDA should either be abolished, or turned into an effective agency by giving it a statutory mandate that would include clear goals that could be monitored by MPs.

If abolished, the report says, its staff should be folded into the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Department. It also says the government should set up an Africa office and the majority of staff moved into the field.

Stollery, deputy chair of the committee, said CIDA has yet to react officially to the report, but he has heard that a response is in the works.

"They are worried because we are right. Why has it gotten such a huge response? We have peeled back the cover of all of this," he said.

"We are going to put pressure on the government to change this situation. We are not finished with this thing. We will corner them," he said.
Little to show for the money, says report

According to the report released in mid-February, since 1968 CIDA has spent $12.4 billion in bilateral assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa, which Stollery defines as the countries between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

The report says there is little to show for the money. "CIDA is ineffective, costly and overly bureaucratic," it reads.

About 80 per cent of CIDA staff are based in Ottawa, and staff people in the field have little authority to design and implement projects and allocate funds, the report says.

"This top-heavy system has perpetuated a system where our development assistance is slow, inflexible and unresponsive to conditions on the ground in recipient countries."
'No clear mandate'

CIDA was established through a paragraph in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Act, the report says, even though it has an annual budget of more than $3 billion.

"CIDA has no well-defined and clear mandate with objectives that can be monitored by parliamentarians," the report says.

Stollery, who was scheduled to speak at the National Press Club in Ottawa on Wednesday night, said Sub-Saharan Africa needs investment and trade that will create jobs, and the government should move away from "poverty alleviation" because economic development is what is needed.

"Without investment and private enterprise, there would be no progress," he said. "Businesses have to be established that will create jobs. Governments from other countries are not going to make Africans richer," he said.

Canada could make a difference to the continent if it had a new, clear and coherent foreign policy on Africa, with a focus on generating economic and employment opportunities, he said.

The report also recommends focusing bilateral development aid on a smaller number of countries to have a greater effect.

Africa needs to tackle corruption aggressively, the report says, while developed countries need to complete the World Trade Organization's Doha round of negotiations to pull down trade barriers that limit the access of African agricultural products to world markets.
A vibrant economy the answer

"Despite many popular beliefs to the contrary, the committee has concluded that international development assistance is not the long-term answer for Africa. Vibrant economies and good governance are the answer for Africa," the report says.

Stollery says the positive response the report has received stems in part from its comments on corruption because there is relief that these issues are being aired.

The committee, which took two years to research the report, heard from more than 400 witnesses. Sub-Saharan Africa is considered the world's poorest region. It contains some of the least developed countries in the world.