The value in foreign aid work
October 16, 2010 - 10:57am
I've been thinking recently about the work people do in foreign countries to help build communities, learn about causes etc. and whether this is the right approach.
I appreciate that this can help create life long supporters of causes that do alot of good but surely there would be more value in hiring local people to do alot of this work. Wouldn't the cost of flights be able to help alot more than the work of this one person.
I'm kinda of trying to play devils advocate here to hear what people with experience in this area think.
Thanks folks
Foreign aid serves Canadian imperialist interests abroad
Under the deal, World University Services Canada, Plan Canada and World Vision Canada will receive CIDA funding totalling $6.7-million for projects with Rio Tinto Alcan, Iamgold and Barrick Gold, respectively. The largest share was for the Plan Canada-Iamgold project, which will take all but $1-million of the CIDA funding over the next five years. For their part, the three mining companies will contribute additional support just shy of $2-million. The combined annual net profit for these firms is more than $4-billion....
Two of the participating mining firms have recently been involved in labour and human-rights disputes related to their operations abroad.
The central tension is whether these NGOs are serving as bagmen, advancing Canadian mining interests with taxpayer funding by appeasing local communities with gifts of health care and education, or whether they are simply piloting a new model of co-operation that might positively influence corporate behaviour overseas while simultaneously addressing development gaps....
[W]hy would CIDA pick up any of the tab to improve the reputation of Canada’s mining sector abroad, if not to cement Mr. Harper’s vision for an aid policy that serves Canada’s trade and economic interests first, officially clearing the belfry of all Pearsonian bats?
Globe & Mail
Foreign Aid Goes Military (New York Review of Books, Nov. 2008)
The US government has just established a regional military command in Africa, AFRICOM, which it justifies not as a military initiative but as part of a growing effort to promote African development. The head of the AFRICOM Transition Team, Rear Admiral Robert Moeller, said that “strategic success” for AFRICOM would be defined as “an African continent that knows liberty, peace, stability, and increasing prosperity,” not to mention “democratic governance.” The share of US foreign aid distributed by the Pentagon increased from 6 percent in 2002 to 22 percent in 2005.
NGOs: In the Service of Imperialism
According to rabble there is nothing wrong with NGOs promoting democracy in other countries, just so long as it's Washington funding political opposition parties around the world and not surreptitiously on the QT through the CIA, Dept. of Agriculture, University of Nebraska, Saudi princes, Pakistan's army intelligence etc etc. And Latin America's militaries need new equipment from time to time in order to stave off various foreign military threats. It's all legit.
CIDA is under Harper's thumb
More problematic still, significant aid dollars are supporting the work of Canadian mining interests overseas, something University of Ottawa professor and CIDA critic Stephen Brown terms a blatant effort to "whitewash the negative effects of their resource extraction."...
Brown calls it "scandalous" that some of the most profitable companies in Canada are, in effect, supported by foreign aid dollars to set up programs that compensate for the negative effects of mining.
In a time of shrinking foreign aid dollars, taxpayers should not be on the hook for corporate social responsibility projects....
Canadian economic interests increasingly play a role in where Canadian development dollars go, say observers.
KAIROS, whose clumsy defunding embroiled [Bev] Oda in a scandal last year, was known to be a vocal critic of some Canadian mining operations. And Brown said CIDA's change in focus from Africa to Latin American countries came at a time when Canada was negotiating free-trade agreements there....
Brown believes decisions frequently get overturned at a higher political level, or stuck.
"She must have the biggest desk in Ottawa," he says of Oda because so many project approvals are said to be "on the minister's desk."
Are they sitting there because she doesn't have time to get to them, he asks, or because there is some other process in place to review CIDA decisions?
Stephen Brown was interviewed on CBC "The Current" this morning and I'm sorry that they didn't give him more time (splitting the half hour segment with him and the CEO of PLAN Canada, one of Harper's CIDA beneficiaries). He was very good and was just getting onto a very insightful roll when time was up. In the mining project in Burkino Faso, the Canadian corp is contributing $200k a year against CIDA's (tax payers) $1 million+ a year. He also said that much of the employment training $$$ were focused on creating skilled workers for the mining operations.
Democracy should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. Stephen Harper
Critics argue that Canada is needlessly subsidizing the foreign operations of profitable corporations, but the government is encouraging non-governmental organizations to come up with more projects with the private sector. This marks the first time that CIDA and mining firms are jointly funding aid projects abroad, and comes after the Conservatives faced a massive pre-election controversy over funding cuts to traditional partners, such as church-backed Kairos.
The mining industry is welcoming the new trend in Canada’s foreign-aid policy.
“There is a policy shift under way, and it’s one we’re encouraged by,” said Pierre Gratton, the president of the Canadian Mining Association.
In an interview, Mr. Gratton praised International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda for pushing the new initiatives, which will make it easier for mining firms to sell their sometimes controversial projects to local populations.
“These projects help improve the image of the industry … because they are meaningful and have value,” Mr. Gratton said. “This is not just PR.”
Federal officials said the policy shift at CIDA is co-ordinated with efforts by International Trade and Natural Resources to encourage the growth of Canadian firms abroad. Prime Minister Stephen Harper outlined the shift in 2007, his second year in power, when he met with officials from Barrick Gold during a trip to Tanzania and said the government wanted “to assist in building our investments here.”...
Officials inside and outside government said more projects are in the pipeline. Ms. Oda travelled last August to Mongolia, the resource-rich country that is in the sights of major Canadian mining operations, but not on CIDA’s list of “countries of focus.” During the visit, Ms. Oda said that Canada was looking to assist Mongolia to “strengthen its democratic governance and economic growth.”
The practice is fuelling the ire of some NGOs and critics of the mining industry, which lambaste the government for subsidizing the so-called “corporate social responsibility” projects that are put in place by profitable companies. Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada said the government is helping the mining industry to put a positive spin on their operations, despite their negative environmental and human-rights records.
“These companies are sitting on piles of cash, so why are Canadian taxpayers paying for their development projects?” Mr. Kneen said.
Globe and Mail
Thanks to NDPP for posting the folowing in another thread:
Mining, CIDA Partnership in Peru is Pacification Program, not Development - by Rick Arnold
One of those projects connects CIDA, Barrick Gold and World Vision in Peru. A local indigenous rep has written them asking them to stop.