Development
Challenges: New Perspectives
A paper spoken to at
a panel of the 1998 Banff Diplomatic Forum
by Hon. David Kilgour, Secretary of State
(Latin America & Africa)
October 31, 1998, Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta
The Government of Canada
remains committed to international development
and to spending tax money on it. Indeed,
I understand my colleague, the Hon. Diane
Marleau, in presenting the 1998/99 CIDA
estimates, indicated her hope that our official
development assistance will soon begin to
rise towards 0.07 per cent of Canada’s
gross domestic product. In that context,
I’d like to discuss some personal views
on why development abroad should remain
one of the priorities of our national government.
During the long years of
the Cold War, international development
policies had a strong, if not dominant,
political dimension. A consensus in support
of foreign aid persisted for decades between
those who saw it as an effective means of
containing the former Soviet bloc’s
influence in the so-called developing world
and those whose motives were more altruistic.
Today, the strategic reasons
to support international development are
less obvious. The reality of limited public
resources is much more apparent these days,
and Canadian MPs are increasingly reminded
by constituents that charity begins at home.
It is harder to maintain public support
for a proactive development policy.
One young Albertan asked
me recently: "With a $580 billion federal
debt, why is Canada spending all those dollars
we don’t have to help other countries?"
It is fair to assume that she spoke for
many. In a door-to-door survey of approximately
350 constituents this past summer, a majority
opposed increasing our government
assistance to developing countries. My constituents
are not isolationist or uncaring, however;
a large majority say that basic human rights
should play a larger role in our foreign
policy.
The challenge today is not
only to get maximum value from development
assistance dollars; we must also demonstrate
that in the post-Cold War period there are
still both strategic and altruistic reasons
why it is in the interest of Canadians generally
to promote international development.
Before saying why I think
international development makes as much
sense today as ever – perhaps more,
I’d like to offer a few disclaimers.
First, most of Canada’s official development
assistance (ODA) is carried out by CIDA,
which falls under the mandate of my colleague,
Hon. Diane Marleau, Minister for International
Cooperation and Francophonie. CIDA, of course,
is headquartered in another building across
the Ottawa River from the Department of
Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). That said, I should add that DFAIT
and CIDA personnel work together very closely
at Canadian missions around the world and
at home.
Second, this panel includes
participants with far more technical expertise.
My comments, therefore, will focus on the
place of international development in Canadian
foreign policy.
During this government’s
last mandate, three key foreign policy objectives
were articulated in a policy statement titled
Canada in the World. These goals
reflected our desire as Canadians to be
active in the world, despite the context
of financial constraint. International development
is at the heart of each of these objectives:
the promotion of prosperity and employment;
the protection of our security, within a
stable global framework; and the projection
of Canadian values and culture.
Promotion of Prosperity
Canadians understandably
want a foreign policy that will contribute
to job creation and prosperity at home.
That is why there is such a strong emphasis
on export promotion and the establishment
of transparent rules for international commerce.
Our nationals generally recognize that rising
economic tides abroad are now essential
to prosperity at home. A prosperous international
climate is also a more stable one; populations
whose economies are strong are much more
likely to be customers for our services
and goods.
We all need to think of
development assistance in terms of trade
and not simply as aid. Canada is seeking
to bring developing economies more firmly
into the international economic system.
We are pursuing this on a number of fronts:
through the World Trade Organization,
NAFTA,
and APEC. Earlier this year, leaders of
governments throughout the Americas met
in Santiago to continue efforts toward a
Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005.
These simultaneous efforts are as much a
part of international development as is
ODA – possibly more so.
Some claim that removing
all trade barriers would transfer $54 billion
(U.S.) to developing countries annually,
which is roughly equal to the combined ODA
now coming yearly from OECD countries. This
is simplistic, says Ismail Serageldin, currently
Vice President for Special Projects at the
World Bank. In his excellent new book, Nurturing
Development, he notes that the benefits
of freer trade would be highly concentrated
in relatively few economies: for example,
Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and Taiwan. Both
trade and aid are needed.
The case for aid in the
severely indebted low income countries,
especially in sub-Saharan Africa, is irrefutable.
Canada has been active both in the G-7 and
the Paris Club in pushing for greater debt
relief for these countries so that they
can escape the cheerless treadmill of indebtedness.
This will allow heavily indebted countries
to participate more fully in the global
economy.
Protecting Security
"Stability and security
are prerequisites for economic growth and
development," says our policy document
Canada in the World. Might one not
also argue the opposite: growth and development
are necessary for stability and security?
We use the term "human
security" to describe our responses
to a complex range of threats that have
become more obvious since the end of the
Cold War. These issues often transcend borders;
they include mass migration, crime, disease,
environment, overpopulation and underdevelopment.
How many of these threats to human security
have poverty at their root? All do at least
to some extent!
Canada is not immune to
catastrophic events in other corners of
the world. Whether these provoke mass migration,
as is the case in the former Yugoslavian
republics, or stock market meltdowns, as
in East Asia, our planet now functions as
a single organism. Less calamitous developments
abroad affect our security too, even if
more subtly. Poor labour or environmental
practices abroad undercut standards at home.
Security today cannot be measured in numbers
of nuclear warheads.
Other security threats fall
under more traditional definitions. Canada
is ready to contribute to international
efforts to contain aggression, whether by
preventive diplomacy through organizations
such as the UN, or by international
peacebuilding.
Just as important, Canadians are prepared
to contribute to local and regional capacities
to maintain security. This can include training
of police in a country such as Haiti, assisting
with drug interdiction methods in the Caribbean,
and training civilian and military personnel
in peacekeeping methods.
Projecting Canadian
Values
A third branch of Canadian
foreign policy is the projection of our
values and culture. This does not mean,
of course, any species of cultural imperialism,
but only the recognition that many of the
values Canadians hold as fundamental can
contribute to international security and
well-being. Respect for democracy, the rule
of law, human rights, open markets and the
natural environment – all are better
promoted in our own country by their promotion
abroad. As noted in Canada in the World,
"Canada is not an island able to resist
a world community that devalued beliefs
central to our identity."
Human rights are not simply
an add-on to our foreign policy, but a crucial
component of it. Democratic development
and good governance are now major features
of our ODA. This includes lending the expertise
of Elections Canada to countries opening
up their electoral process, and programs
contributing to the development of a vigorous
civil society.
There is a strong relationship
between an openness to democratic participation
and long-term political stability; between
freedom of expression and freedom of trade
and markets; between transparency in government
and business practices. One does not necessarily
imply the other, but a pattern is obvious.
Similarly, as many have
noted, despite all the dreadful wars in
this century, no two countries with established
democratic systems have engaged in full-scale
combat against each other.
On the same theme, can any
nation be considered generally developed
unless its nationals enjoy fundamental freedoms?
Sustainable development
is an ideal that makes sense both from a
security and economic standpoint. Using
resources efficiently is also more likely
to reduce poverty over the longer term and
contribute to a clean environment. Countries
committed to poverty reduction through environmentally
sustainable development are more likely
to use aid efficiently. This becomes an
important consideration when governments
consider how to get the best value from
development dollars.
Human Resource Development
The need for nations to
invest in their human resources is fully
consistent with Canadian development objectives.
Serageldin notes that the World Bank reviewed
the evidence for 60 developing countries
over 23 years and found that countries focussing
on human resource development and
having sound macroeconomic management experienced
GDP growth fully 2.5 per cent higher than
ones that did neither.
Poverty reduction is easier
to achieve in a climate of economic growth,
but it is by no means automatic. Similarly,
it is difficult to sustain growth if the
social dimension is not taken into account.
Growth and poverty reduction are opposite
sides of the same coin. When the economic
pie is stagnant, elites are more protective
of their share. When it is growing, it is
often easier to direct a larger share toward
disadvantaged communities.
Growth itself hardly guarantees
a more just distribution. A number of countries
have similar growth rates, but very different
rates of success in poverty reduction. What
is needed are national policies that both
enhance growth and combat poverty effectively.
Empowering People
The very poor of our world
are, of course, a source of major entrepreneurial
talent. Walk down a major downtown street
in many developing countries and one can
see the vigorous, if not frenetic, activity
of the informal sector – frequently
run by women and children – selling
products from tropical birds to tacos, from
home appliances to scrap metal. The sector
acts as a giant safety valve, absorbing
millions of people of all ages who cannot
find a place in the formal economy. Its
unregulated nature often leads to a blurry
line between informal enterprise and dangerous
or criminal activity; it is also peripheral
to growth of the formal economy.
What if many of these entrepreneurs
could transform their activities into sustainable
micro-enterprises. Through innovative microcredit
programs, including the Grameen Bank of
Bangladesh, the BancoSol of Bolivia and
Calmeadow in Canada, this has often been
highly successful. Repayment rates are often
much higher for microcredit loans than for
conventional ones – as high as 98 per
cent in the experience of the Grameen Bank
– and many individuals are empowered
to escape the cycle of poverty through their
own abilities. I am pleased that Canada
though CIDA has played a supportive role
internationally in microcredit and micro-enterprise
programs that empower the poor.
Pure Altruism
I have argued that there
remain in the late 1990s a number of excellent
reasons for Canadians to continue development
assistance: the need for more prosperous
trading partners, for international stability,
and for the promotion and protection of
fundamental Canadian values.
Let me make very briefly
the case on purely altruistic grounds. Around
the world, close to a billion people still
suffer from hunger and malnourishment. Every
day, about 40,000 persons die from hunger-related
causes. Children are, of course, the most
affected, and the UN estimates that 33,000
children die from poverty-related diseases
every day. That’s roughly the entire
population of Grande Prairie, Alberta, or
Aylmer, Québec perishing each day!
Alan Cassels of Results
Canada/Resultats Canada looks at this figure
another way. We were all deeply saddened
by the tragic Swissair jet crash near Peggy’s
Cove. Imagine a similar plane full of children
crashing every ten minutes with no survivors.
That is roughly equivalent to the deaths
of children from poverty, and, as Cassels
points out, the daily tragedies create many
grieving relatives.
Nor is the tragedy of hunger measured only
in deaths. Those who don’t die are
often stunted in their growth and fail to
realize the full potential of their personalities.
The blight of hunger and
our tolerance of it reflects badly on all
humanity. It is no better than the tolerance
of slavery in the last century, Sarageldin
argues. He calls for new abolitionists who
will do their utmost to abolish hunger because
it is a moral imperative. Can anyone disagree?
Conclusion
The new realities of the
post-Cold War world has forced us to rethink
our approach to international development.
We are now freed from more overtly political
demands to use aid as a weapon of international
rivalry. At the same time, the benefits
of a foreign aid to Canada’s international
aims are not as obvious, and therefore it
is more difficult to maintain public support.
I have argued that international
development remains vital both to Canadians’
self interest and to our responsibility
to brothers and sisters on a shrinking planet.
Development moreover, is at the heart of
all three pillars of Canada’s foreign
policy. International prosperity translates
into much needed jobs at home. Our own security
depends on a stable international order,
free from threats such as international
violence, disease, mass migration and environmental
disasters created by human hands. The democratic
values we cherish as Canadians can best
be preserved through their advancement abroad.
Some say aid has failed,
that it is misused, or that it promotes
dependency. Such arguments are rebuttable,
but it is up to all of us to ensure that
aid dollars are put to the most cost effective
use. Aid money is limited and can never
be expected by itself to raise a recipient
people’s standard of living very much.
It is only effective when it is used to
kick-start local initiative and leverage
local resources. We in the so-called developed
countries can play a contributing role,
and it must be one based on full partnership.
Ultimately, of course, the people of a developing
nation itself are mostly in control of their
own destinies.
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