CIDA - Predicting the Weather

We have argued a few times in these posts on CIDA that, since 80% of Africa’s population is rural and agricultural based, the time has come to focus development on those regions where the majority of Africans live. Such settings are often perched on the verge of drought and disease because of the realities of encroaching climate change.Regions such as these make the clearest case for aid. Why would industry ensconce itself in such areas? How would the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund build a sustainable future in these most remote and challenging areas of the planet? Let’s be honest, despite what Dambisa Moyo and her ilk proclaim, economic renewal won’t be coming to such places anytime soon, and since over three-quarters of Africans lived in these regions, their only hope is foreign aid and sustainable development funds. It’s not an ideology, just clearheaded logic.In a recent trip to Washington D.C., I was shocked to discover that one of the main funders of USAID (America’s CIDA) was the Pentagon. The Pentagon! What was the rationale? Simply put, military minds in America were tiring of attempting to predict where the next security-related problems would come from in Africa. Suddenly, with the arrival of climate change science, the Pentagon could predict which areas would be struck by drought, epidemics, desertification and crop failure. It would only stand to reason that such areas would soon descend into a battle of survival between tribes and ethnic groups. And so the Pentagon has taken to provide USAID the funds to move into these areas, far enough in advance to make a concrete difference in the targeted regions and perhaps stem the violence. It makes perfect sense and is based on science, not ideology.CIDA is moving the wrong way on this file, opting to pull out of many African nations just as it is becoming clear how we might better assist them through the efficient use of science and aid.  So, here are some ideas of how CIDA can get it right in Africa on this subject of climate change.

• Eliminate subsidies to environmentally unstable aid projects
• Create a fund designated to help developing countries subsidize “clean up” projects after ecological disasters strike, thereby strengthening adaptive capacity
• Provide its well-established expertise to policy makers in the developing world in areas of climate science and natural resource management, such as dry-land agriculture, soil conservation, watershed management, and sustainable forest management
• Provide the use of equipment which supports environmental sustainability, such as solar ovens and the SODIS water strategy, which uses the sun's own ultraviolent rays to purify the water.
• The most important thing CIDA and Canada could do to hinder the rise of environmental refugees is to live up to its own responsibility at the Copenhagen meetings on the environment in a couple of months – nothing is more vital. CIDA must take on an advocacy role within its own government.

These represent clear courses of action that CIDA could take now, but only if it re-engages in Africa. The largest source of environmental refugees will come from that continent and the smartest thing CIDA could do would be to stem the tide with smart research and even smarter investments. I’m no climatologist, but I have worked extensively on the ground in Africa. Such projects are eminently doable in rural settings.  They might not only stem the tide of the coming refugees, they might also provide CIDA a vital place on the world stage and help it to recapture its lost vision. Not a bad trade-off.