McLeod Group Blog, February 6, 2019

Mali, a vast country in West Africa on the edge of the Sahara, is receiving large amounts of assistance from Canada. But what are we doing there? Are we addressing the deeply rooted issues that make Mali an impoverished, fragile state?

Canada’s involvement in Mali came back into the public eye just before Christmas when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a brief visit to the Canadian military contingent in Gao, northern Mali. Canada’s much-vaunted return ...

Blog by Stephen Brown and Hunter McGill, December 6, 2018

To help ensure that Canadian foreign aid is spent on supporting people in need in developing countries, rather than things like white elephants and Canadian commercial interests, Canada has legislation that mandates a focus on poverty reduction. The legislation also seeks to ensure that the government takes into account the perspectives of poor people and Canada’s human rights obligations when approving aid spending. The law is actually quite weak, but rather than ...

McLeod Group blog, December 3, 2018

In October, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hit the press like a bomb. The headlines since then have been relentless and shocking:

• “UN report calls for urgent action to avert catastrophic climate change”, The Globe and Mail, October 8, 2018
• “‘Devastating’ Human Impact on Planetary Health”, IISD, November 6, 2018
• “The Earth is in a death spiral”, The Guardian, November 14, 2018
• “Canada among worst offenders ...

McLeod Group blog, November 19, 2018

This year, the theme of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation’s annual conference was “Is Canada Back? Delivering on Good Intentions”. A confident community of civil society organizations (CSOs) felt now was the time to challenge the Trudeau government on how well it was delivering on its promises.

The concern is that bold words were not being turned into pro-poor, gender-sensitive implementation. A much strengthened effort is needed for effective programming on Canada’s two bold ...

McLeod Group blog by Betty Plewes, October 30, 2018

In July, I received a frantic email from a Ugandan colleague who was coming to Canada to present a paper at the International Conference of Agricultural Economists in Vancouver. Both of her research associates, one from Ethiopia and one from Nigeria, had been refused a Canadian visa needed to attend the conference. Could I help?

They had received identical rejection letters stating that the visa officer was not satisfied that they would leave ...

McLeod Group guest blog by Ian Smillie, October 23, 2018

Every five years or so, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducts a “peer review” of its members’ development assistance programs. This year, it was Canada’s turn again, and the OECD report card was, as it almost always is, generally positive and constructive in its gentle criticism.

There was polite applause. The McLeod Group wrote, “Overall, the report gave Canada good marks for adopting ...

McLeod Group blog by Stéphanie Bacher, October 11, 2018.

We often hear about Canada urging other countries to respect human rights, most recently Saudi Arabia. But other countries also make recommendations to the Canadian government in order to help Canada improve its human rights situation at home and abroad.

This year, it was Canada’s turn to undergo an assessment called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. At the review, other countries made a total of ...

McLeod Group blog, September 24, 2018 

Medical advances in public health, notably in the realm of vaccinations, have transformed the life expectancy of people in all parts of the world. They have also vastly improved the quality of life: less blindness, less deafness, less brain damage, and fewer other crippling effects from contagious diseases such as measles. Even the poorest countries in the world have invested “blood and treasure” in vaccination campaigns.

Thus, it was no surprise that “vaccines for all” was ...

McLeod Group blog by Hunter McGill and Stephen Brown, September 18, 2018

Every five years or so, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducts a “peer review” of the countries that belong to its Development Assistance Committee (DAC). This year was Canada’s turn and the report has just been released. What did Canada’s peers have to say about Canadian development cooperation?

The aims of peer review are to examine critically a country’s development cooperation policies and programs, ...

McLeod Group guest blog by Marc-André Anzueto, September 17, 2018 

“How shall we behave in a world we no longer dominate?” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland recently asked, referring to liberal democracies. Beyond the famous catchphrase “Canada is back”, the Trudeau government has remained vague on the ways Canada is going to face the crisis of the international liberal order. Following Canada’s current foreign policy priorities, the ongoing diplomatic feud with Saudi Arabia provides an occasion for Canada ...