The Issue
Over the last decade, Canadian governments have shown global leadership by increasing funding to overseas aid. This has allowed Canada to make significant contributions to emergencies, like the drought affecting 12 million people in the Horn of Africa, and to match the donations of Canadians to aid organizations like World Vision. Canada also led by example at the 2010 G8 in Muskoka, making a major financial contribution to improve maternal and child health.
Last year, however, the current government announced its plan to stop increasing aid. This year, given ongoing economic pressures to reduce spending, the cap on aid may remain. Maintaining the freeze on aid, however, will make aid far less effective.
Why?
Firstly, effective aid means that there is enough available to respond quickly to emergencies and to extend development programs that make a sustainable difference, helping prevent future crises. If aid is frozen and an emergency arises like the Horn of Africa food crisis, the government can be forced to choose between responding to suffering people or continuing to fund successful programs that deal with the root causes of food crises, like programs to improve agriculture. Effective aid also involves responding to the early warning signs of disasters. Often, before food crises, increases in global food prices signal that a crisis is looming. If addressed early, some types of emergencies can be averted. Prevention is far less costly than cure. Drought prevention measures cost approximately USD $6.50 per person, versus USD $250 per person to maintain emergency drought relief for only 3-4 months. Effective aid means having enough aid to deal with the root causes of disasters and to stop them before they happen.
Secondly, effective aid is predictable aid. Governments of countries that receive on-going aid from Canada make promises to their citizens based on the aid that Canada has promised. Freezing aid could strain Canada’s commitments to these countries. This is because weather-related emergencies are predicted by many scientists to keep growing in number, needing increasing amounts of aid. A frozen aid budget cannot respond increasingly to emergencies and meet our on-going commitments. This could mean losing ground in reducing worldwide poverty, and harming the trust between governments that receive aid and their citizens. Effective aid, then, must allow for keeping our existing commitments and for responding to new crises.
What World Vision is doing
World Vision is participating in the Government of Canada’s 2012 pre-budget consultations. We are asking the Government to take three actions to help ensure that Canada’s aid remains effective:
1. Increase resources to respond to emergencies
2. Increase the aid budget overall so that it remains responsive to the growing number of disasters, while keeping our on-going commitments to the world’s poor
3. Provide incentives, through tax credits, to encourage Canadians to keep giving
We are also talking to the Government about how to respond to crises like drought in the Horn of Africa, so that Canada can meet immediate needs and help prevent future crises.
What you can do
WRITE to your MP to express your concerns about the impact of a freeze on Canada’s aid budget
READ World Vision’s detailed submission to the GoC on Canada’s budget
