Canada to overhaul foreign aid

Canada will radically overhaul its foreign aid program, devoting most of its assistance to a group of 25 mainly African countries rather than spreading it out over more than 150 nations as at present, the government said on Tuesday. The announcement was made in a wide-ranging foreign policy review which reconfirmed Ottawa's intention to double its foreign aid to more than C$5 billion ($4 billion) by 2010 from 2001 levels. Critics have long complained about what they see as the unfocused nature of Canada's overseas assistance and ask why Ottawa is giving money to such emerging superpowers as China.
The review said that by 2010, at least two-thirds of Canada's country-to-country assistance - which accounts for 40 percent of the overall aid budget - would be focused on 25 developing countries, more than half of which are in Africa.
"We have concluded that the government's aid budget is spread too thinly across too many programs in more than 150 countries," Prime Minister Paul Martin wrote in an introduction to the review.
The document said Canada's aid program would focus on good governance, health issues such as HIV/AIDS, basic education, private sector development and environmental sustainability.
It said the 25 nations - including Benin, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Zambia - were among the poorest on earth and had already demonstrated they could use aid effectively. But one key proposed recipient is Kenya, which Canada recently criticised for not clamping down on corruption.
"There is no permanent list - countries' performance and conditions will be assessed," one official told reporters.
"Our intention is to increase programs in these countries, but if conditions are not propitious, we won't do so."
Aid programs to so-called failed and fragile states such as Haiti, Afghanistan and Sudan will be funded from the remaining third of the direct assistance budget.
Officials said Canada would continue to donate money to China, but only to Canadian-run projects focusing on improving the environment and the judiciary.
Ottawa also said it would improve its ability to respond more quickly to natural disasters. Canada has a special 200-strong disaster relief team but political wrangling and arguments over hiring cargo planes meant it took more than two weeks to reach areas hit by last December's tsunami.