McLeod Group Blog

BACK TO THE FUTURE: CANADA AND UN PEACEKEEPING

BACK TO THE FUTURE: CANADA AND UN PEACEKEEPING

McLeod Group Blog, January 17, 2017

How serious is Canada about global peace and security? The decision has been made to return to UN peacekeeping, but only in principle. Now comes the hard part: the what and the where. Do we understand what has been happening during our absence from the modern world of peace operations? Discussions have been based on a fair amount of misinformation (e.g. peacekeeping didn’t use to be complicated, or political, or dangerous).

So what’s missing now?

When dealing ...

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REFUGEES: BRIDGING THE HUMANITARIAN-DEVELOPMENT GAP

REFUGEES: BRIDGING THE HUMANITARIAN-DEVELOPMENT GAP

Guest Blog by James Milner and Kevin Dunbar, January 11, 2017

Events in Europe and elsewhere over the past year have again highlighted the many deficiencies of the “global refugee regime.” Established in the aftermath of World War II, this regime has two core functions: to ensure protection for refugees and to find a solution to this plight.

By any objective measure, the global refugee regime is not working – and there have been growing demands from the public and politicians of ...

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THE WAR ON TERROR vs. THE WAR ON POVERTY

THE WAR ON TERROR vs. THE WAR ON POVERTY

McLeod Group Blog by Ian Smillie, January 4, 2017

In a recent New York Review of Books article, William Easterly argues that by conflating the ‘war on terror’ with the ‘war on poverty’, Western donor governments have made a big mistake.

Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University and author of several powerful critiques of foreign aid (The White Man’s Burden, The Tyranny of Experts) says that Western donors, making a correlation between poverty and terrorism—for which there is little ...

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The International Assistance Review: What They Heard

The International Assistance Review: What They Heard

McLeod Group Blog by Stephen Brown, December 19, 2016

After completing its large-scale consultations as part of its International Assistance Review, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) recently published online a summary entitled “What we heard”. The review was a welcome opportunity for interested parties across Canada and around the world to express their views. GAC engaged over 15,000 people and organizations in 65 countries and received over 10,000 contributions. The task of collating all the information they received was colossal—and it ...

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PARLIAMENT’S BLURRY REPORT ON ‘FOCUS’

PARLIAMENT’S BLURRY REPORT ON ‘FOCUS’

McLeod Group Blog, December 13, 2016

In early November, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development issued a report titled ‘Development Cooperation for a More Stable, Inclusive and Prosperous World: A Collective Ambition.’  Unfortunately, the contents don’t quite live up to the title. The committee has missed an opportunity to make an important contribution to the process of preparing a new international assistance strategy for Canada, a process which is expected to produce a policy ...

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CIVIL SOCIETY’S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CIVIL SOCIETY’S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Le français suit.

Blog by Stéphanie Bacher, December 7, 2016

Civil society is under attack. That is the main conclusion from the most recent report published by the international alliance CIVICUS on the state of civil society in the world. In many countries, whether authoritarian or democratic, a series of obstacles threaten civil society and hinder its ability to promote international development and basic human rights. In Canada, for example, the budgets of several international development organizations were drastically reduced in ...

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GETTING YOUR GOAT

GETTING YOUR GOAT

McLeod Group Blog, December 2, 2016

It’s the time of year when our media overflow with requests for funding – with the implication that buying a goat or sponsoring a child will ‘save’ a family.  The fact that these fundraising efforts are so ubiquitous and so successful shows that Canadians badly want to do something about global poverty and to contribute to sustainable development. But these appeals, based on the engaging image of a goat (or chickens, or bed nets, or ...

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Whatever Happened to the Aid Effectiveness Agenda?

Whatever Happened to the Aid Effectiveness Agenda?

McLeod Group blog by Stephen Brown, November 29, 2016

In the early 2000s, Western donors finally recognized that they were partly to blame for foreign aid’s often disappointing results. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, adopted in 2005, was the result of that soul-searching.

The Declaration was based on five core principles, including recipient countries’ ownership of their poverty reduction strategies, donors’ alignment with this vision and harmonization among donors. A total of 138 countries (donors and recipients), 28 international ...

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BRASS TAX, BRASS KNUCKLES: CRA and the Political Activity of Canadian Charities

BRASS TAX, BRASS KNUCKLES: CRA and the Political Activity of Canadian Charities

McLeod Group Blog by Ian Smillie, November 7, 2016

The discussion about Canadian charities tax law and ‘political activities’ has become hopelessly confused in obtuse and badly outdated definitions and interpretations of the words ‘charity’, ‘political’, ‘purpose’ and ‘activity’. It has become especially confused where international development organizations are concerned, because the underlying preconditions for change in developing countries often lie within the realms of rights—basic human rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, prisoners’ rights—and in issues of good governance, ...

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LOST IN THE MINEFIELD? CANADA AND THE OTTAWA TREATY

LOST IN THE MINEFIELD? CANADA AND THE OTTAWA TREATY

Guest Blog by Ted Paterson, October 3, 2016

Recent days have seen much ado concerning Canada’s renewed commitment to peacekeeping, but far less attention has been paid to our other diplomatic initiative that was worthy of a Nobel Prize, the Ottawa Treaty on landmines. This seems curious given the success of the Treaty and the accolades Canada received for its leadership twenty years ago.

Over 160 states have joined the Treaty, which has dramatically curtailed the use of anti-personnel landmines and virtually ...

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