Good Idea - Troubled History

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's idea of the rapidly diminishing G8 becoming an oversight body for development aid was a good one and holds out some promise for coordinating international resources to troubled nations. The G8 is desperately looking for something to restore it lagging usefulness and this could just be the ticket, given the growing importance of the G20. And his surprise announcement that Canada would now focus on maternal and child health had many in the development community quietly flushed with satisfaction. Who can argue? The fate of poor women and children in the world is a desperate problem.Yet seasoned development veterans will correctly see some pitfalls.

• Focusing on the G8 for development aid could leave out those emerging financial nations that have made important contributions to the international aid structure. CIDA minister Bev Oda successfully enticed the Brazilians to assist in the Haiti relief effort, for example. Harper must be careful that the G8 doesn't maintain its reputation as an elite club of the  "haves."
• Effective development stumbles when it focuses on one issue to the detriment of others. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for instance, add such vital activities as the eradication of extreme poverty, universal primary education, true gender equality for women, environmental sustainability, and the development of a global partnership for development to the just-announced child and maternal health. We run the risk, as we have so many times in the past, of focusing so much on one target that we miss the greater picture. If women and children have their collective health improved through this effort, but children can't gain access to education we will have failed. Or if women are healthy but are still refused leadership at local levels or have to move their entire families to dangerous areas because of climate change, what have they gained? Some 120-180 million of them are about to become environmental refugees in Africa, regardless of the state of their health. And what if they are pillars of health but can't establish their own micro-enterprises and get their goods to market?
• a political focus on maternal and child health that fails to permit CIDA experts or effective and knowledgeable partners in the NGO sector to take the lead in all such activity is doomed to failure. Folks inside CIDA have pressed governments for years to turn the corner on this. If Harper is serious, he must permit them to lead.
• the surprise announcement last week has created a winner-loser scenario. This is inevitable when you shift focus, but it does mean that those NGOs focusing on other aspects of the MDGs will inevitably lose some funding. The government should have consulted with such groups far in advance of the decision to prepare them for their inevitable transition into new funding arrangements. This never happened. The winners are happy; the losers are ... shocked.
• it's tough to lead the world on an issue when you're failing on it at home. Just think of the bloody nose we received at Copenhagen. The federal assistance to the plight of our aboriginal communities is pitiable. Over 500 aboriginal women have disappeared and the government registers barely a pulse. Obesity and the lack of health in our children is alarming. Greenhouse gas emissions in Canada jeopardize the health of all. The government needs to undertake true reform by assisting women and children abroad and at home.

To those development groups that came out on top with the PM's announcement, I rejoice with them. Nevertheless, they understand development well enough to know that focusing can result in neglect and I would encourage them to fight for all aspects of development and not just their own. For this they would have to advocate - something many now will be reluctant to undertake lest they undermine their funding possibilities. Once again, politics controls the agenda when it should have been the development experts taking the lead.