Canada in Africa

The myth(s) of Canada in Africa O ne key error to avoid is for Canadian policy makers to allow themselves to think that they will be restoring a tradition of active and constructive engagement in the challenges facing the continent – “good international citizenship,” in the terminology of the English School of international relations.2 To be sure, some Canadian officials and civil society groups h [...] In short, a more active presence in Africa will require that the government systematically move beyond the current desultory level of aid spending (below the OECD average, at 0.28% of GNI in 2015), and at the same time forge consistent relationships with governmental and non-governmental “partners” in a stable set of “countries of concentration.”21 At the same time, there are some more positive in [...] However, the end point needs to extend well beyond the ‘disconnected’ relationships that have been the historic norm between development policy makers and non-governmental expertise on Canadian policy toward Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.24 The challenge and opportunity of extractive sector investment A key reason why it has been so difficult to set and sustain a coherent policy app [...] Policy Implications Of course, Canadian-African relationships encompass far more than the issues highlighted in this brief analysis, including long-standing and steadily expanding trans-societal links, other dimensions of trade in goods and services, the seemingly never-ending “crisis” of humanitarianism in the face of protracted humanitarian emergencies, and the challenges and repercussions of cl [...] More concretely, there is a need to increase and sustain the resources (both human and financial) devoted to Africa policy; to engage systematically with the best thinking in this and other countries on the nature of the challenges and opportunities facing the continent; to identify ways in which Canada can bring distinctive priorities and assets to bear in addressing them; and to build and sustai