Feb. 20, 2007: CIDA Africa Futility - UN Doing Good

CIDA's record of futility , National Post, February 19, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/
editorialsletters/story.html?id=
2765f56d-110b-49bb-8452-28e0a1974524&p=2

The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's new report on the failure of Canadian aid in sub-Sarahan Africa ... foreign aid and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). [....]

Hugh Segal and the other committee members have created a concrete plan [....]

... the plan ... within reach politically as well as operationally [....]

The report does not shy away from exposing the full measure of Western failure in sub-Saharan Africa.

International aid spending on the continent has totalled $568-billion since 1960, yet African economies have fallen further and further behind the rest of the world. "Kenya at independence was one of the most advanced countries in Africa," the report chronicles, "with a standard of living in 1963 equivalent to that of South Korea. At independence in 1964, Zambia was better off in per capita terms than Singapore. Today, the gross national income per capita of Kenya is US$480 compared to US$14,100 in South Korea (i.e., 29 times more); the GNI per capita in Zambia is US$400 compared to US$26,600 in Singapore (i.e., 67 times more)."

Since the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Africa's share of world trade has declined from over 7% to less than 3%. [....]

UN, Arar, Aboriginals, Language - Demands

UN committee queries Canada over Arar -- "a panel of 18 independent experts overseeing compliance with the United Nations' 38-year-old anti-racism treaty" -- It was not his race that was the problem , Bradley S. Klapper, Nov. 19, 07

cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/
2007/02/19/3645429-ap.html

The UN panel also questioned Canada's aboriginal policies and asked that it explain how it guarantees aboriginal groups rights to land and resources.

On Quebec, the committee asked whether Canada would consider new rules so that French speakers of African or Asian descent would be guaranteed the same access to francophone schools and other benefits as those of European backgrounds. The term Quebecois has traditionally referred to people who could trace their ancestors back to the first French settlers of the 1600s.