Canadian International Development Minister urges fight against poverty even during times of COVID-19

By Will Dickson

The economic and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have forced governments around the world to rethink their foreign aid strategies. Many nations will cut back investment in foreign aid in 2021, and a significant portion of international funding will be redirected in favor of vaccine diplomacy. In contrast, in late December Canada announced an increase in its overseas development assistance budget for 2021. Warning that a decade’s worth of progress in the fight against poverty has been lost, the country’s International Development, Minister Karina Gould urged governments to simultaneously fight COVID-19 and poverty.

In late December, Gould announced that CAD$485 million (US$380 million) would be earmarked for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries. This money will be in addition to Canada’s CAD$5.9 billion overseas development assistance budget. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Gould stressed that it was her “consistent message to colleagues and partners around the world”.

“We cannot lose focus; we must stay the course on the importance of directives that we have in development, in addition to responding to COVID-19.”

“There are a lot of things to be worried about,” Gould said. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that there are now 270 million people in extreme food insecurity, an 82% increase since the beginning of the pandemic. Latin America has been hardest hit during the pandemic, with the number of people requiring food assistance growing three-fold. But, before the pandemic even started, climate change, conflict, and socio-economic crises had exacerbated global food insecurity over the previous four years. Gould then went on to cite that school closures are depriving millions of girls of education. The longer schools are closed, the less likely those girls are to return.

“We’re talking about an additional 10 million child brides,” Gould said.

By increasing its foreign aid budget after a severe economic recession in mid-2020, Canada is improving its standing in regards to a significant international benchmark. Fifty years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution that economically advanced countries would progressively increase their Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to a minimum of 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI). Only six countries have ever reached the 0.7 % GNI target. Canada will still fall short of the target this year, but it is likely to jump up the rankings as some major nations cut back on spending.

The United Kingdom, the largest economy to ever reach the 0.7 % GNI commitment, announced a £5 billion reduction in foreign investment for 2021. This will be the first time since 2013 that the British government falls short of the 0.7% GNI mark. The government’s decision was contentious‒ a meeting that commitment was adopted into British law in 2015. However, domestic economic and political tensions in the wake of the pandemic are not limited to the UK. The United States, which provides more ODA than any other nation, is having its own debate over how much foreign assistance is appropriate during a domestic crisis.

Most nations likely recognize that fighting COVID-19 abroad is in their own self-interest in our modern mobile world. But Gould maintains that funding the fight against COVID-19 must not swallow up existing development spending on the fight against poverty. Doing so could not only be catastrophic for the world’s poor, but also risks the spread of even more diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and polio.

“What keeps me up at night,” Gould told the Canadian Press, “is not just the immediate needs of the pandemic, but the collateral damage if we turn our attention away from our core activities.”