Support to African Countries since NEPAD was
adopted in 2001
Trade:
Canada
committed to eliminating tariffs and quotas on almost all imports from the 48
countries that the United Nations has termed "least developed
countries" (LDCs), 34 of which are in Africa. This market access
initiative took effect on Jan. 1, 2003. The only goods to be exempted are dairy
products, poultry, and eggs. Improved access to Canadian markets will help
African producers to generate employment and diversify their economies. Canada
is providing additional trade-related capacity building to enable African
partners to benefit from this increased market access.
In
November 2002, the Minister for International Trade headed the first ever
ministerial-led Canadian trade mission to Africa, visiting Nigeria, Senegal,
and South Africa. More than 100 Canadian companies participated, making this
mission one of the largest ever led by a Canadian trade minister.
§
On Jan. 1, 2003, Canada eliminated tariffs
and quotas on almost all imports from LDCs, 34 of which are in Africa.
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The Canada Investment Fund for Africa is
being established with $100 million in public funds to be matched by the
private sector.
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In March 2003, Canada contributed an
additional $75 million to the HIPC Trust Fund at the World Bank.
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Canada has cancelled all official development
assistance debts of sub-Saharan African countries.
Investment:
Canada
is establishing the Canada Investment Fund for Africa to leverage private
sector investment in support of Africa's development. The government is
contributing $100 million to the investment fund to leverage an equivalent
amount, or more, from the private sector. The investment fund is structured to
ensure respect for NEPAD principles, including good governance; transparency;
and adherence to human rights, democracy, and corporate social responsibility.
A fund manager is being selected. Candidates were required to demonstrate a
clear understanding and prior application of policies relating to business
ethics, environmental and social responsibility standards, and conflict of
interest. The fund manager and an appropriate governance structure and
performance-monitoring arrangement are due to be in place by the fall of 2003.
With
$10 million in Canadian support, the African Development Bank is setting up a
project preparation facility to encourage investment in infrastructure and to
develop viable project proposals, including public-private partnerships. It
will thus help to mobilize financing for infrastructure in key areas such as
water, energy, transportation, and information and communications technologies,
including existing untapped resources for infrastructure financing at
international financial institutions and from the private sector.
Debt relief:
In
March 2003, Canada contributed an additional $75 million to the World
Bank-administered Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Trust Fund. Canada
maintains a debt service moratorium for seven HIPC countries in Africa and has
agreed to forgive all debt once HIPC commitments are met, as it has done
recently for Tanzania and Benin. Under the terms of the Canada Debt Initiative,
Canada has committed to forgiving over $1.1 billion in debts owed to Canada by
17 HIPC countries, 14 of which are in Africa.
Canada has also cancelled
all official development assistance debts owed to it by sub-Saharan African
countries.
Delivering on Canada's
other commitments to Africa:
In
addition to providing and helping to generate additional public and private
resources for development, Canada is implementing the specific commitments of
the G8 Africa Action Plan.
At
the Kananaskis Summit in June 2002, the Prime Minister announced a series of
national initiatives in support of NEPAD and the G8 Africa Action Plan, most of
which would be funded by the $500-million Canada Fund for Africa. These
initiatives address each of the principal elements of NEPAD, including those
that affect individual people in Africa most directly. The allocation is 31 per
cent for sustainable growth, trade, and investment; 24 per cent for health and
HIV/AIDS; 21 per cent for agriculture and water; 11 per cent for institutions
and governance; eight per cent for knowledge: digital opportunities; and five
per cent for peace and security. One year later, virtually all of these
initiatives are in place, with the remaining few at an advanced stage of
preparation.
The
following sections give an overview of the status of the specific national
commitments Canada made at the Kananaskis Summit in June 2002 and provide
examples of other actions taken to respond to the G8 Africa Action Plan as a
whole.
Sustainable
growth, trade, and investment:
Canada
has committed more than $20 million in trade-related technical assistance to
help Africa compete globally. NEPAD seeks to create the conditions necessary to
place African countries, individually and collectively, on a path to
sustainable growth and development and to enable Africa to participate more
actively in the world economy.
§
Canada has committed more than $20 million in
trade-related technical assistance to help Africa compete globally.
Canada
has committed an additional $20 million in trade-related capacity building to
assist African partners in taking advantage of increased market access and in
representing their interests more effectively in the ongoing Doha Round of
World Trade Organization negotiations. This commitment supplements existing
Canadian trade-related capacity building for Africa, and includes:
§
$7 million for the Joint Integrated Technical
Assistance Program of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development to support African countries in better
participating in the multilateral trading system and in taking advantage of
trade opportunities;
§
$8 million for the International Trade
Center, based in Geneva, Switzerland, and for Trade Facilitation Office Canada
to provide practical assistance in enhancing the capacity of the African
private sector to do business internationally and to promote their exports;
and,
§
$5 million to develop the Africa Trade Policy
Center based at the Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
in order to increase the number of qualified experts able to represent African
interests in negotiating multilateral agreements, integrating trade into
economic policy, and promoting trade.
§
Canada has also provided $1 million in
equipment, training and technical support toward establishing a market for
financial securities within the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa,
based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
Health and HIV/AIDS:
NEPAD
identifies the widespread incidence of communicable diseases in Africa — in
particular, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria — as a major impediment to the
continent's development. Canada has supported African efforts to ensure the
health and well being of the people of Africa.
§
$50 million has been committed for research
for an HIV/AIDS vaccine and additional support for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention
programs.
§
$50 million has been committed to help
eradicate polio by 2005.
§
Canada has committed $50 million to HIV/AIDS
vaccine research in conjunction with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
and the African AIDS Vaccine Partnership. This is in addition to existing
Canadian support for the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria. The international vaccine initiative has advanced in developing and
testing potential AIDS vaccines designed for Africa and has increased
awareness, understanding and national involvement. Its work has received a
boost with the Canadian contribution.
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A further $50 million has been committed to
the global campaign to eradicate polio by 2005, in collaboration with UNICEF
and the World Health Organization. Polio still afflicts seven countries, of
which four are in Africa. Its eradication would improve the quality of life for
millions in Africa and free up resources within the health and social sectors
in affected African countries. Canada was the first of the G8 countries to
pledge new funds in support of the G8's promise to provide the financial
resources necessary. Canada's contribution enables UNICEF and WHO to carry out
critical work, such as vaccination.
§
Canada has committed $1.5 million to child
development in Africa through programs for children and youth, with support
from Right to Play, a Toronto-based non-governmental organization. Communities
in refugee camps in the Horn of Africa are the first beneficiaries of these
programs, which contribute to the physical and psychological development of
children.
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Canada is also contributing over $70 million
for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa over five
years — by strengthening local community groups, providing professional
training, and working with women and children to improve knowledge of
prevention and palliative strategies.
Agriculture and water:
NEPAD
emphasizes that improved agricultural performance is a prerequisite for
economic development on the continent. Canada is supporting African efforts to
achieve food security, to increase agricultural productivity and to improve
sustainable access to safe and adequate drinking water and sanitation,
especially for the poor.
§
Canada has committed $40 million for research
on agricultural productivity.
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Canada has committed $50 million to improve
water management and access to fresh water and sanitation.
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Canada has provided more than $100 million in
humanitarian aid to relieve famine.
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Canada has committed $40 million for research
on agricultural productivity in Africa, in conjunction with the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research. As a result, all of the
consultative group's 16 agricultural research centers are increasing their
Africa-specific research, focusing on the needs of small-scale farmers and
women producers. In Africa, the consultative group has research centers
headquartered in Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire; Nairobi, Kenya; and Ibadan, Nigeria.
§
Canada has committed $50 million to improve
water management and access to fresh water and sanitation in Africa, working
with various African partners and in conjunction with the Global Water
Partnership, an international, non-governmental alliance that promotes
integrated water-resources management.
§
In May 2003, CIDA adopted a new policy
statement, Promoting Sustainable Development through Agriculture, which
responds directly to three elements of the G8 Africa Action Plan: making
support for agriculture a higher international priority; reducing poverty
through sustainable productivity and enhanced competitiveness; and working to
improve food security. As a result, Canada will increase its investment in the
agricultural sector from a current level of about $95 million annually to $300
million in fiscal year 2005–6, to reach an annual investment of $500 million by
fiscal year 2007–8. Africa will benefit from a significant portion of these
resources.
§
Since the Kananaskis Summit in June 2002,
Canada has responded to food shortages in Africa with more than $100 million in
humanitarian aid for the areas most severely affected, such as Southern and
Eastern Africa. This includes over $10 million for Angola and over $40 million
for Ethiopia.
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Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has signed
memorandums of understanding and research agreements with scientific
institutions in Egypt and Ghana to facilitate collaborative research and
training to address Africa's agricultural development research priorities. The
Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing is working with the Committee for Earth
Observation Satellites to promote and provide training on the use of earth
observation to support sustainable development in Africa, including in the
areas of agriculture and water.
Institutions
and governance:
NEPAD
emphasizes that democracy, good governance and human rights are also among the
conditions for sustainable development in Africa. In establishing an African
peer-review mechanism, African leaders have underscored the importance of transparent
economic, corporate, and political governance.
§
$28 million has been committed to improve
public sector governance and transparency.
§
Canada has committed $28 million toward
public sector capacity building in African countries through an innovative
arrangement with the African Capacity-Building Foundation, a pan-African
institution based in Harare, Zimbabwe. The funding is being used to strengthen
the foundation's capacity and to help individual African countries to address
such crucial issues as financial accountability, economic policy, and public
participation in governance. Canadian public sector expertise is also made
available through the Canadian Centre for Management Development.
§
Canada has committed $9 million to
strengthening the role of African parliaments and parliamentarians, including
improving parliamentary oversight — an explicit objective of NEPAD — and
reinforcing the role of women in government. Initial activities focus on ways
that parliaments can fight corruption. This project, which involves the
participation of African parliamentarians, is being carried out with support
from the Ottawa-based Parliamentary Centre.
§
Canada has committed $6 million toward
improving local governance by working with African partners, including the African
Union of Local Authorities, to develop new approaches to providing basic
community needs. These basic needs include access to water, sanitation and
health services — areas in which municipalities are now playing an important
role. Initial work, undertaken with the support of the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities, has focused on identifying and disseminating best practices.
§
Gender equality is a priority for Canadian
development assistance in Africa and is integrated into every CIDA program.
More than $20 million have been committed to civil society groups in several
African countries. Canada supports civil society activities that promote the
rights and the political and economic empowerment of women, supports campaigns
to prevent violence against women, and examines the situation of women in
conditions of armed conflict.
Knowledge: Education and
digital opportunities:
Through
NEPAD, African leaders pledge to promote people-centered development. Canada is
supporting African efforts to improve the quality of life of the people of
Africa in a number of ways, including by supporting African efforts to expand
access to education and to information and communications technologies.
§
Canada has committed to doubling its
investment in basic education in Africa to $100 million a year by 2005. In line
with this, Mozambique and Tanzania have already benefited from a specific
allocation of $50 million in additional support made available to each of them
over five years.
§
§
Significant resources have been committed to
support African efforts to make use of information and communications
technologies (ICTs) to accelerate economic and social growth, to enhance access
to education, and to improve the provision of services to poor communities across
the continent. Canada has committed $35 million to three initiatives:
§
Canada has committed to doubling its
investment in basic education in Africa to $100 million a year by 2005.
§
More than $35 million has been committed to
help Africa bridge the digital divide.
§
Canada has committed an additional $12
million to help the African Virtual University, based in Nairobi, Kenya, to
expand its network of community learning centers and its distance-learning
programs in disciplines relevant to NEPAD.
§
Canada has also provided $5 million for
ICT-based commercial training initiatives in connection with Franconet, a
network of French-speaking national Internet communities, and with
technological institutions that focus on increasing Internet capacity,
training, and access in 20 francophone countries in Africa.
Peace
and security:
NEPAD
emphasizes that peace, security, and human rights are among the conditions
necessary for sustainable development in Africa. Through NEPAD, African leaders
undertook joint responsibility for specific obligations. Canada has also sought
to reinforce African efforts in each of these areas.
§
Canada has committed $15 million to promote
peace and security and build safer communities in West Africa. This initiative,
undertaken in conjunction with the 15-member Economic Community of West African
States, seeks to build capacity in three crucial areas: peace support
operations, including peacekeeping; controlling the flow of small arms and
light weapons; and policing. Canadian funding of the newly established Kofi
Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana, is supporting
curriculum and faculty development.
§
Canada has committed $4 million to maintain
peace and security through the newly formed African Union. This, too, reflects
a priority objective of NEPAD. When arrangements are complete, the African
Union will be better able to fulfill its conflict prevention and conflict
resolution mandate — by strengthening its early-warning systems, mediation
capacity, and ability to deploy observer missions and protect civilians in
situations of armed conflict.
§
Canada has also intensified its support for
African efforts to achieve and consolidate peace. For example, special envoys
named by the Minister of Foreign Affairs have been active in the search for
peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, and the Foreign
Minister of Sudan made an official visit to Canada in May 2003 in connection
with the peace process. Since 2002, Canada has also provided more than $6.7
million for reconciliation processes, tribunals, and court systems in Sierra
Leone and Rwanda, and more than $17 million for peace building through the
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants;
community-based initiatives involving women and children; and related
child-protection work in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte
d'Ivoire, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda. Canada
also continues to support efforts to enhance African capacity for the physical
and legal protection of civilians in armed conflict, including developing, with
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a pilot project in Guinea to
improve security in refugee camps.
§
Canada has continued to provide leadership in
addressing the issue of anti-personnel mines in Africa, the most mine-affected
continent. In 2002, Canada contributed over $3.3 million toward mine clearance,
mine-risk education, and stockpile destruction initiatives in Angola, Chad, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania,
Mozambique, Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda. The February 2003 budget allocated $72
million over the next five years to replenish the land mine fund for Africa and
elsewhere. Canada also provided leadership within the group of G8 mine action
ambassadors, which agreed to increase support for mine action in Africa. Canada
is also encouraging other donors, including international financial institutions
and multilateral development institutions, to increase funding for mine action
in Africa and to incorporate mine action in their program strategies for
African countries where landmines present an obstacle to development.
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Canada is fully implementing the Best
Practices Guidelines on Small Arms Transfers, adopted in December 2002 by the
Wassenaar Arrangement, an international government forum through which issues
relating to conventional weapons are addressed. Canada will continue to press
for implementing and strengthening relevant multilateral mechanisms. And it has
supported African civil society participation in establishing national focal
points to implement the Nairobi Declaration on the Problem of Illicit Small
Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.
§
As part of the global effort to reduce trade
in conflict diamonds, Canada implemented legislation in January 2003 to meet
its Kimberley Process obligations to certify rough diamonds imported to or
exported from Canadian territory.
§
$15 million has been committed to make
communities in West Africa safer.
§
$4 million has been committed to support the
African Union's conflict prevention and resolution work.
Support for NEPAD
Priorities
Canada's
actions in support of NEPAD have been governed by respect for Africa's
ownership and leadership of the NEPAD initiative. Canada has sought to respond
directly to priorities identified by African partners, including the four areas
identified as priorities for development partners:
§
Communicable diseases
§
Information and communications technologies
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Debt reduction, and market access
§
Capacity building in Africa, on enhancing the
effectiveness of existing sub-regional and pan-African institutions, and on
making progress toward Millennium Development Goal commitments, all of which
are integral to NEPAD.
§
Canada's support for NEPAD recognizes the
personal involvement of African heads of state and government in the process
and their pledge to promote peace and stability, democracy, sound economic
management, and people-centered development.
Approximate financial assistance to African countries since 2001
Canada
has committed $6 billion in official development assistance (ODA) for Africa in
new and existing resources over the five-year period beginning with the
Kananaskis Summit in 2002. Canada established the $500-million Canada Fund for
Africa to support the objectives of NEPAD and the G8 Africa Action Plan. This
is in addition to Canada's existing ODA for Africa, which amounts to about $700
million a year. The Canada Fund for Africa became operational following the
Kananaskis Summit, under the guidance of the Minister for International
Co-operation. In its initial year of operation, ending March 31, 2003, the fund
disbursed $70 million.
§
Canada will provide $6 billion in ODA to
Africa over five years starting in 2002.
§
Canada will double its international
assistance by 2010. Half or more of this increase will go to Africa.
§
The first $1.4 billion increase was included
in the February 2003 federal budget.
§
A $500 million Canada Fund for Africa was
created in support of NEPAD and the G8 Africa Action Plan.
At
Kananaskis, the Prime Minister also committed to increasing international
assistance by eight per cent a year and to directing half or more of these
additional resources to Africa. Accordingly, the federal budget of February
2003 increased Canada's international assistance envelope through 2004–5 to
double the assistance budget by 2010. This translates into an increase of $1.4
billion in the 2002–3 fiscal year and the two subsequent years, of which half
or more will be directed to Africa.
Aid
effectiveness:
In
September 2002 Canada issued a new policy statement on strengthening aid
effectiveness. The policy rests on key principles, such as local ownership,
policy coherence, and results-based approaches. It also takes into account the
key factors in the effective use of aid investments, such as governance,
building capacity, and engaging civil society.
§
Consistent with CIDA's policy on
strengthening aid effectiveness, the Canadian government has identified nine
countries-of-focus that will be eligible for additional development assistance
as a result of increases in Canada's international assistance. Six of these are
in Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, and Tanzania. These were
selected from among lower-income countries with which Canada had an existing
development-assistance relationship.
§
In the G8 Africa Action Plan, G8 partners
undertook to establish enhanced partnerships, which will go beyond development
assistance, with African countries whose performance reflects the NEPAD
principles, including political and financial commitments to good governance
and the rule of law. Canada has undertaken to be informed by the results of
this NEPAD African peer-review process and intends to defer decisions about
enhanced partnerships until that review process has produced results.
§
In 2002, Canada became the first development
partner to include African participation in the peer-review assessment of its
official development assistance, which is undertaken by the Development
Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development, the principal forum of donor countries. African involvement in
this review was in response to Africa's suggestion that the new partnership be
based on shared responsibility, and mutual respect and accountability.
§
To strengthen effectiveness, Canadian
development assistance is being aligned with national poverty reduction
strategies. Canada is making full use of new approaches to development
assistance, such as direct budgetary support, sector-based assistance programs,
simplified reporting systems, and strengthened country-led co-ordination. This
effort will be supported by strategically strengthening the field presence and
realigning headquarters and field resources to support program delivery.