Ottawa - The Honourable Aileen Carroll, Minister of International Cooperation, today announced that, under Canada's International Policy Statement (IPS), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) will concentrate the bulk of its country-to-country assistance in targeted sectors in 25 developing countries. This will lead to an increased impact in poverty reduction. "By 2010, at least two-thirds of CIDA's direct country-to-country assistance will be focused on 25 developing countries - of which more than half are in Africa - that are among the poorest but have the capacity to use aid effectively," said Minister Carroll. Canada's 25 Development Partners: AfricaBenin Burkina Faso Cameroon Ethiopia Ghana Kenya Malawi Mali Mozambique Niger Rwanda Senegal Tanzania ZambiaAmericasBolivia Guyana Honduras NicaraguaAsia Bangladesh Cambodia Indonesia Pakistan Sri Lanka VietnamEUROPE Ukraine The following criteria have been used to select Development Partners: Level of poverty. To ensure that aid resources focus where the need is greatest, CIDA's Development Partners were identified from among the poorest countries. The UNDP Human Development Index, which ranks countries based on life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, school enrolment, and standard of living measured by GDP per capita, is one of the tools used to identify Development Partners. Another is income; only countries below US$1,000 in average per-capita annual income (measured at current exchange rates) would be considered for designation as Development Partners. Ability to use aid effectively. Criteria for assessment include economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions. The World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment, which assesses a country's policies and institutional framework to support poverty reduction, sustainable growth, and effective use of development assistance, offers one international tool which is used to assist in making a Canadian judgment. Sufficient Canadian presence to add value. Canada's current rank relative to other donors and the scale of our current aid effort will be factors in assessing Canada's potential for impact in a developing country. It is recognized that Canada's presence is further enhanced through a strong contribution to our priority sectors, and where we have a particularly effective and privileged policy dialogue. Canada's value-added is further strengthened through its own historical and people-to-people ties with these countries. CIDA will target its efforts in the following sectors: governance, health (with a focus on HIV/AIDS), basic education, private-sector development, and environmental sustainability, with gender equality as a cross-cutting theme that is systematically and explicitly integrated across all programming. These sectors are all fundamental to human well-being and crucial to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, internationally agreed, time-bound, and quantifiable targets for reducing global poverty. The 2002 Peer Review of Canadian aid carried out by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) noted that Canadian aid is among the most dispersed of DAC members in terms of countries supported and that this could be a disadvantage for Canada in having an impact. The World Bank's influential 1999 research report "Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why", concluded that development assistance should more concentrated in 'high impact' countries and that strong economic institutions and policies result in aid being more effective in reducing poverty. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands are among several major donors which have increased the focus of their aid programs to target a more limited number of the poorest developing countries. "Reducing global poverty represents one of the most important and difficult challenges the world will confront between now, 2015, and beyond," said Minister Carroll. "CIDA's new focus for development aid will enhance Canada's role in the fight against global poverty." - 30 - Information Andrew Graham Director of Communications Office of the Minister of International Cooperation Telephone: (819) 953-6238 Media Relations Office Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Telephone: (819)953-6534 E-mail: info@acdi-cida.gc.ca Web site: www.cida.gc.ca (electronic version of document)
