Shaping the ‘Canadian way’ in Africa
OTTAWA—I remember quite clearly one fall morning several years before I retired from Global Affairs Canada when I joined other staff at a roundtable coffee-and-muffins breakfast with the deputy minister responsible for international development. I was the last to speak. I described my responsibilities for trade in 25 countries in West and Central Africa. “My […]
Time for a global Canadian food policy
The government is soon to release a new food policy for Canada. With six departments actively engaged, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at the helm, the national food policy has occasioned an ambitious and often contentious—but widely welcomed—debate. The engagement of so many departments, not least Health Canada, speaks to the growing understanding in policy […]
How Canada and the IICA are trying to ease climate change’s harm to family farms in the Americas
My recent visit to Ottawa resulted in the strengthening of cooperation efforts to benefit vulnerable areas in the Americas. The agency I lead, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), together with several prestigious and active organizations based in Canada, such as the International Development Research Centre and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, […]
Did the finance minister table a sexist budget?
The avowed purpose of the recent federal budget was to look at public expenses through a feminist lens. Disappointingly, the budget only included small increases for foreign aid. In reality, foreign aid will be growing at a slower pace than other government expenditures despite having been frozen for five years, and will be far from […]
Will Canada’s aid policy for women really make a difference?
Since the introduction of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy in June last year, close to half a million Rohingya women and children have fled terrible violence. Many recount harrowing stories of rape and sexual abuse, loss of family members or being separated from loved ones during flight to safety. They arrive in Bangladesh hungry and […]
Go for gold and boost aid funding
Canada’s performance at the 2018 Winter Olympics put us near the top of the world. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about our record on international development. Our level of assistance has never reached the international target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI). Not only do we not have a gold medal, […]
How Canada plans to run the world’s newest development finance institution
Most of us don’t think twice about stopping at a coffee shop each morning. But did you know the cost of one cup of coffee is more than what hundreds of millions of people around the world live on in a day? According to data from the United Nations, more than 700 million people are […]
DFAIT-CIDA merger has led to a foreign ministry dominated by development staff
It is always enjoyable to stay in touch with former foreign ministry colleagues in my “retryment.” Like “Godwin’s Law” of the internet, or any discussion of United States politics that leads to Donald Trump, it is inevitable when two or more former employees from the Department Now Known As Global Affairs gather together, the talk inevitably […]
For Afghanistan to develop it needs security, and Canada must help
Insurgent attacks beginning on Jan. 21 devastated Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul. Three sophisticated attacks on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, a site near the former interior affairs ministry in central Kabul, and the National Military Academy left more than 100 dead and many others severely injured. These attacks call into question the ability of Afghanistan’s central […]
Food policies should support small-scale producers
Ten years ago, a spike in food prices ignited a global food crisis that compromised the ability of the world’s poorest people to access an adequate diet. Governments around the world responded by supporting the expansion of large-scale agricultural production, based on the idea that producing more food in this way translates into lower prices […]
