foundation of canada asia pacific - Content Tagged with

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Responsibility for Canada’s international relations rests primarily with the Department of
Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). The Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA) is responsible for the administration of ODA. CIDA focuses Canada’s
ODA on the alleviation of poverty and the promotion of sustainable development,
following a number of priorities: the provision of basic human needs (like primary health
care, education, water, sanitation and shelter); full participation of women in society;
development of democracy and good governance; promotion of a healthy private business
sector; provision of sustainable infrastructure services; and protection of the environment.
Canada seeks little direct return for its participation. “Benefit to Canada,” though
nominally a factor in designing ODA projects, has been pursued less than vigorously and
often with some embarrassment by CIDA officials. Other government departments have
not shown such inhibition. In the past decade, these agencies have become involved in
international cooperation areas that call for solutions more complex than the traditional
donor-recipient model, usually with a spin-off benefit to Canada. There is a need to
recognize and coordinate this type of assistance with Canada’s overall ODA effort.
THE “NEW” ODA
The need for traditional ODA to provide for the basic human needs of the 900 million
people in Asia who live in poverty 1 is perhaps greater now than it was at the start of the
decade. The Asian economic crisis in Indonesia and Thailand, plus population growth
in the Philippines, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have only exacerbated an already
unacceptable situation. In recognition of this, CIDA, along with such organizations as
the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, has adopted poverty reduction as its
overarching objective. But the need for “new” ODA is bound to grow too as globalization
advances. In Asia Pacific, economic integration has created the biggest demand for
regional public goods, a demand that traditional ODA cannot, and was not designed to,
meet. The range of projects is extremely diverse. It includes such areas as control of crossborder
pollution, common product quality standards, financial market regulation and
stabilization, and law enforcement. One of the lesser known aspects of APEC is its work
addressing some of these needs through its trade facilitation and its economic and
technical cooperation activities — albeit in a haphazard and as yet half-hearted manner.
Canada is active in APEC working groups and committees involved in projects aimed
at harmonization of customs procedures, financial market regulation, development of
fish inspection systems, and aviation and maritime safety. We regularly send experts
from the relevant government departments (as well as from the private sector) to these
working groups and committees, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.
It may be hard to identify how a specific developing country benefits from Canada’s
participation in a certain working group. However, all participating developing countries
stand to benefit from the successful provision of a regional public good such as common
product standards or cooperation in financial market monitoring. 2 Not only developing
countries but all participants in a regional exercise can benefit, which is of course their
reason for participating in the first place. That is a problem for traditionalists who are
unable to identify the donor or the recipient in these types of projects. In fact, there is
no real distinction. Among Asian developing economies there is resistance to the use of