| JUNE 19,2006
War on terror sucking up aid dollars at expense of poverty reduction: report OTTAWA (CP) - A disproportionate amount of international aid is pouring into Iraq and Afghanistan for self-interested reasons that have more to do with the fight on terrorism than poverty reduction, says a new report. The Reality of Aid Network's annual 2006 global overview of development assistance states that Iraq and Afghanistan swallowed up $10 billion of the $27 billion in new aid added to donor budgets between 2000 and 2004. Only one quarter of the new resources, states the independent network comprised of civil society groups, was even available for Millennium Development Goal initiatives laid out by the UNITED NATIONS. While the United States and Australia are identified as the worst offenders, Canada is also cited. Between 2001 and 2004, about 28 per cent of new Canadian aid was targeted at Afghanistan and Iraq for reasons that the Canadian International Development Agency explicitly linked to global security. "The result has been a distortion of the government's commitment to allocate new aid resources since 2002 for CIDA's program in its nine countries of focus," states a chapter on Canada in the 386-page report. Between 2001 and 2004, about 28 per cent of new Canadian aid was targeted at Afghanistan and Iraq for reasons that the Canadian International Development Agency explicitly linked to global security. "The result has been a distortion of the government's commitment to allocate new aid resources since 2002 for CIDA's program in its nine countries of focus," states a chapter on Canada in the 386-page report. |
| In the news
November 8th 2006: Chemical pollution may have harmed the brains of millions of children around the world in what scientists are calling a "silent pandemic". By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor click here |
| SEPTEMBER 8 2006 - THE TORONTO STAR
Here in Canada, in one of the richest countries of the world, the very poorest are getting poorer. It is happening in the midst of a long-running economic boom and reflects the deliberate decisions of elected governments — presumably supported by the Canadian public at large — to purge the roughly 1.7 million people consigned to welfare from our collective consciousness. Successive governments have gutted or eliminated much of Canada's vaunted social safety net. For most workers, employment insurance doesn't exist. Increasingly, employers prefer part-time or contract workers who can be fired at will and who are owed neither benefits nor pensions. If the economy falters and unemployment spikes — as it is almost sure to do again — there is not much between a comfortable middle-class life and welfare. As the council points out, for the vast majority of those on welfare, things are bad and getting worse. The figures are depressing and distressing. In Ontario, for example, the incomes of most welfare recipients, after adjustment for inflation, are lower now than they were 20 years ago. In British Columbia, now run by a nominally Liberal government, welfare recipients with disabilities get less in real terms than they did in 1989.As for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the council says their reforms don't help the poor much at all. Still it's worth noting, as the council does, that Harper's income-tax cuts benefit high-income earners most. His GST cut doesn't help the poor, who already had a sales-tax break. His new $100 a month child-care benefit, the council says, may help more well-to-do parents who already have access to daycare but does little for people on welfare who can neither find nor afford care. "Most Canadians would find it impossible to cope with the substantial income losses that welfare households have experienced," the council writes. "Coping is even harder for those who are already at the bottom of the income scale, given their already meagre incomes. Yet there appears to be little concern ... "Have both governments and the Canadian public turned their backs on the poorest of the poor?" |
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