Despite its good intensions, a new Canadian Senate report on development aid to Africa says that for the past 40 years, Ottawa’s foreign aid to Africa has not been effective in alleviating poverty. It consequently calls for “a new roadmap” to “overcome 40 years of failure.”

International development agencies working in Africa are realizing that their ineffectiveness emanates from lack of broader input of Africa’s history, experiences, norms, values and traditions in the designing of development aid. Dubbed Overcoming 40 Years of Failure:  A New Roadmap for Sub-Saharan Africa, the highly critical Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade study  acknowledges the emergence of “African Renaissance” as a “positive advancement” that “will result in a lasting change” in the continent’s development process. The acknowledgment of African Renaissance which upholds that Africa’s history, experiences, norms, values and traditions should be part of the core factors in designing development programs for Africa confirms the growing impact of international development literature and research in this direction.

International development agencies’ programs to a large extent ignore Africa’s experiences and values hence affecting their efficiency. No doubt, the well-researched Canadian Senate report takes to task the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as the key face of Ottawa’s foreign aid policy and practices by concluding that CIDA “has been largely ineffective and its future must be reviewed.” You don’t solve a problem if you don’t understand it – you solve Africa’s problems by understanding Africa’s values first.

The report argues that CIDA “is hampered by its structure, lack of a formal statute and consistent leadership. In addition, 81 per cent of its employees work in Ottawa and only 19 per cent actually work in the field.”  Not surprising, such lack of holistic policy framework has seen CIDA, since its “inception in 1968, spend $12.4 billion (Canadian) in bilateral assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, with few notable or lasting results.” 

What African bureaucrats and other office bound elites can borrow from the Canadian Senate Committee members is that they “heard testimony from over 400 expert witnesses in Canada, Africa and Europe.  In addition, Committee members traveled to Africa to conduct interviews and see conditions in African countries firsthand.” To make this more feasible to Africa, the only region where foreign development paradigms dominate its development process, “the report recommends that the Government of Canada create an Africa Office, comprising aid, trade, security and foreign affairs staff with a mandate of achieving economic development in Africa.  At least 80 per cent of Africa Office staff, resources, and financial decision-making authority should be decentralized to the field.”