inFocus: How can foreign aid spending become a political winner?

inFocus with David Coletto

On August 30, the Globe and Mail published an editorial highlighting the fact that Canada’s foreign aid spending is in decline – again.

They wrote, after noting that Canada’s defence spending is no where near the NATO target, “there’s a similar yet lesser known international yardstick on which Canada also falls well below the collective goal: spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on official development assistance.” The editorial goes onto conclude: “Ottawa needs to further bolster spending on foreign aid,” because, they argue “Canada’s presence in the world, whether military, economic development, or humanitarian, needs to be backed up with adequate funding.”

So today, we ask: Can foreign aid be a political winner?

On this episode of inFocus, I’m joined by Julia Anderson, the CEO at the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health or CanWaCH for short. CanWaCH has over 100 members ranging from NGOs, academic institutions, health professional associations and individuals partnering to improve health outcomes for women and children in more than 1,000 communities worldwide. It has also been a client of mine for several years now.

Joining Julia is Robert Greenhill, the Executive Chairman of Global Canada Initiative and a CIGI fellow. Robert served as managing director and chief business officer at the World Economic Forum. Prior to this, he was president and deputy minister of the Canadian International Development Agency and a senior visiting executive with the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa.

I’m thrilled to have both of these leaders on the podcast to talk about how Canada’s doing today when it comes to foreign aid, what is holding us back, and explore the results of a public opinion survey Abacus Data recently completed for CanWaCH on the topic.