Aid flows - a cause for deep concern

According to a recent OECD DAC review, although global foreign aid will reach record levels in 2010, it will still be much less than the world’s major donors promised five years ago at the Gleneagles and Millennium + 5 summits. Though a majority of countries will meet their commitments, the underperformance of several large donors means there will be a significant shortfall.  Africa will particularly feel the impact of the reduction receiving less than half of what was promised at Gleneagles in 2005 ($12b rather than $25b).
In 2005 15 members of the EU agreed to reach a minimum target of .51% of GNI (Gross National Income) by 2010.  Some countries, such as Sweden (at 1.03%) the world’s most generous donor, Denmark (at 0.83%) and the United Kingdom (at 0.56%) will exceed that.  Others, such as France (0.46%), Germany (0.40%), Austria (0.37%) and Portugal (0.34%), will fall short, although they will still be higher than Canada at 0.33%. 
At 0.33% of GNI, Canada ranks as one of the least generous donors coming in 18th out of 22. And the situation will get worse over the next four years.  In its March 2010 budget the Conservative government announced that it will freeze foreign-aid spending next year after honouring the final instalment of a decade-old Liberal government promise to double overseas development spending.

Canadian ODA to GNI Performance Ratio

2010-11           0.33 %
2011-12           0.32 %
2012-13           0.30 %
2013-14           0.29 %
2014-15           0.28 %

CCIC Calculations
  The International Assistance Envelope (IAE) will be approximately $5 billion in 2010-11 and it is estimated that Canadian Official Development Assistance (ODA) for this coming year will be $5.2 billion.  Given a capped budget at 2010-11 levels ($5.2 billion), Canada’s aid performance will decline from 0.33% of GNI in 2010-11 to 0.28% in 2014-15. This will put Canada at the lowest ranking in its history as a donor among the 22 OECD donor countries   - at 18th spot out of 22 in 2010 according to the OECD. Only the United States (0.20%), Japan (0.20%), Greece (0.21%) and Italy (0.20%) rank lower in 2010.
 The Budget goes further than a cap and states that aid spending in future years will be “assessed alongside all other government priorities on a year-by-year basis in the budget”.
There are no details in the budget on new aid priorities such as

• Canada’s pledge to contribute to the fund to rebuild Haiti;
• Canada’s Maternal and Child Health Initiative to be presented to the G8;
• Or the commitment made by Canada in December 2009 at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that it would contribute its fair share to a US$30 billion “fast start” climate change fund for the period 2010 to 2012.

Given these new priorities, the announced cap for aid, and perhaps additional annual uncertainty on aid levels, the impact on existing CIDA programs is likely to be be significant. The government has repeatedly affirmed the doubling of aid to Africa as an important achievement. But it will be very difficult to sustain current levels of funding for Africa in the context of an aid freeze if CIDA must meet other aid priorities out of very limited uncommitted funds in any given year.
Many Canadian organizations have been calling on the government to join other donors in setting out a plan to reach the 0.7% target with planned increases that would average 14% per year. The Conservative plan not only fails to meet this goal,  it reneges on a promise to bring Canadian aid up to the average of other donor nations and  runs counter to commitments Canada made in 2008 at the Accra High Level Forum, where it agreed to increase the predictability of Canadian aid in the years ahead. 
Canada is a "global leader and continuously demonstrates this by honouring its international commitments," says the budget.   It is hard to see how.