Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee this morning.
My name is Fraser Reilly-King. I'm a policy analyst on aid with the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. It's a national platform of 93 voluntary sector organizations that work on sustainable development issues.
We have three messages for the 2012 budget. They are to include a long-term plan for the growth of Canadian aid, to enhance commitments to climate financing, and to support the first replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education.
On the first message, in recent years the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, has been driven by an aid-effectiveness action plan. In the past few years, this has led it to increase its focus, to be more effective and efficient, and to be more accountable. This has generated improvements to the quality of aid that Canada is providing. While the quality of aid has improved, less can be said of the quantity of aid. Budget 2012-13 is expected to be the second year in which the government will announce a four-year freeze on the international assistance envelope, leaving our official development assistance at a little over $5 billion. This represents around 0.3% of gross national income.
With no increases to Canadian aid in the coming years, it's expected that Canada will drop to among the lowest performers of 22 donors in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Some donors, including the United Kingdom and Australia, despite much harder economic conditions, have still maintained ambitious commitments on aid. The British government still intends to provide 0.7% of its gross national income by 2013, and the Australian government 0.5% by 2015.
Why should these governments commit to this? Last week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking about the millennium development goals and the gap that exists in trying to realize those goals, noted that a number of donors were limiting their aid budgets at a time when it was most needed. He said that a sobering economic outlook was no excuse not to deliver on these commitments and that in fact such commitments represented smart investments in a shared future.
We believe that Canada is in a position to make these investments. According to the 2011 budget plan, Canada has the best fiscal position in the G-7, with our debt levels historically and internationally lower for the coming years. Furthermore, speaking at the International Monetary Fund last week, Minister of Finance Flaherty said that Canada's economic resiliency has left both real gross domestic product and financial domestic demand significantly above pre-recession levels. Furthermore, the current freeze will only amount to 1.2% of the planned savings, or $2.2 billion, in order for Canada to balance its budget by 2014. What we propose is that the 2012-13 budget be an opportunity for Canada to renew its commitments and to set a gradual 10-year timetable to increase Canadian official development assistance to the UN target of 0.7% of gross national income. This would amount to approximately $680 million in the international assistance envelope for Budget 2012.
In our second message, beyond basic development needs, climate change is intensifying conditions of poverty in a number of countries around the world. November, for us, is a chance for Canada to make its second commitment toward the fast-start initiative. In 2010 Canada provided $400 million in fast-start financing for developing countries, and we're hoping that ahead of the next Conference of Parties meeting in Durban on climate change, in November and December, that Canada will make its second commitment of $400 million, and that the 2012 budget will be an opportunity to provide the third commitment of $400 million to such mechanisms as the least developed country fund or the UN adaptation fund that will prioritize the needs of the poor.
In 2012 we're also hoping that, just as it will generate a plan and timetable for its commitments around ODA, it would do the same on climate change financing. This will enhance the predictability of necessary funds, and we're also hoping that these funds will be additional to existing aid commitments. We can't rob Peter to pay Paul. In 2010, for example, of the $400 million it provided for financing, $100 million came from the existing aid budget. Finally, we hope that this money will be in the form of grants, not loans, hence ensuring that it doesn't sow the seeds of future debt crisis.
On the third and final message--and I can make it very brief--Canada was one of the founding members of the education for all fast-track initiative, which is now called the Global Partnership for Education. We're hoping that ahead of the first replenishment meeting of the Global Partnership for Education, Canada can commit to making a three-year commitment to the $125 million over three years. This is in keeping with its current thematic priorities around sustainable economic growth, children and youth, and food security, and it will enhance those objectives.
Thank you.