International Development

Canada has a proud tradition of supporting less developed countries in their efforts to foster and sustain economic growth, social equity and environmental sustainability. Canadians want to relieve human misery in the world, but they also recognize that Canada's own security and prosperity cannot be sustained in a global context of poverty, injustice, violence and ecological depredation.

• As United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has noted, the poor have grown poorer not because of too much globalization, but because of too little. Freer trade and robust flows of private investment are critical to the spread of prosperity in developing countries.
• Good governance, including the development of democratic institutions, respect for the rule of law and a sound social infrastructure, is a pre-requisite for access to growing flows of trade and investment.
• In addition to providing relief from human misery, Canada’s international development policy should leverage Canada’s considerable experience in fostering good governance. Similarly, aid policies must be fully integrated with Canada’s bilateral and multilateral efforts to promote trade and investment liberalization and global peace and security.
• For too long, Canada’s development aid has been spread too thinly, trying to address too many needs in too many countries. To have greater impact in saving and improving lives, Canada must make difficult choices and focus its resources more intensively on a narrower range of countries and objectives. In this context, the CCCE strongly supports the government’s announced plan to concentrate development aid on a list of 25 key recipient countries while doubling the overall aid budget.