Policy Updates

On April 16, 2024, Canada released its Budget 2024, which included new funding to support Ukraine and bolster Canada’s international humanitarian assistance, but was criticized for a lack of transparency and did not include an increase in longer-term development assistance.

New funding announced included:

• CAD2.4 billion (US$1.7 billion) in loans to Ukraine in 2024 to support civilian services;
• CAD217 million (US$157 million) over five years starting in FY2025/26 for the EBRD to support Ukraine’s reconstruction;
• CAD76 million (US$55 million) for additional peace and security assistance for Ukraine between FY2024/25 and FY2026/27;
• CAD350 million (US$254 million) over two years beginning in FY2024/25 to international humanitarian assistance;
• CAD146 million (US$106 million) over five years starting in FY2027/28 to purchase shares in the Inter-American Development Bank to support clean economic growth and create economic opportunities for women in Latin America and the Caribbean; and
• CAD40 million (US$29 million) in FY 2023/24 for humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Budget 2024 also recommits to leadership on international women’s rights and gender equality, support for global LGBTQI+ rights, and the modernization of international financial institutions, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Agreement Act, the International Development Assistance Act, and the IMF to support responsiveness to emerging global threats.

Canadian international cooperation organizations and coalitions, including Cooperation Canada, Oxfam Canada, UNICEF Canada, and more, released statements lauding the government's commitment to CAD350 million (US$254 million) in new international humanitarian assistance. However, Cooperation Canada criticized the lack of budget transparency surrounding Canada’s IAE as well as the absence of any increase in funding for longer-term development assistance.

While previous budgets presented rough estimates of the IAE, Budget 2024 does not provide a spending forecast. Cooperation Canada noted that it is difficult to know whether Canada’s assistance budget is increasing or decreasing with no information on trends, sectoral or spending-type breakdowns, or multi-year forward spending plans. The coalition estimated the IAE budget for this year to be around CAD7.2 billion (US$5.2 billion) per year, representing a growth of about 5% from 2023's CAD6.9 billion (US$5 billion).

On April 15, 2024, Canadian Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen participated in the International Humanitarian Conference for Sudan and its Neighbours, where he announced CAD132million (US$96 million) in international assistance funding to Sudan and neighbouring Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.

The announcement included nearly CAD101 million (US$73 million) in humanitarian assistance and nearly CAD32 million (US$23 million) in development assistance amid the ongoing armed conflict in Sudan. The funding is slated to provide crisis-affected people with emergency health services, food and nutrition assistance, protection services for gender-based violence survivors, and other assistance including shelter, water, and sanitation services. The development assistance will support critical programming in SRHR and education infrastructure.

On April 11, 2024, Canada’s Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen announced CAD142 million (US$103 million) in funding for projects in the DRC and Benin to advance gender equality and women’s rights.

Six projects valued at a total of nearly CAD75 million (US$55 million) were announced for the DRC. The projects will improve access to health resources for women and girls, promote inclusive governance practices, improve women’s inclusion in public and democratic life, and help prevent and respond to SGBV. Funding also included humanitarian programming that will address critical needs arising from the conflict in eastern DRC.

Five projects valued at a total of CAD68 million (US$49 million) were announced for Benin. The initiatives are slated to increase women’s economic resilience, promote a greener economy and agricultural sector, address SGBV, and strengthen inclusive health systems.

At the Summit for Democracy on March 20, 2024, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Canada announced CAD30 million (US$22 million) to protect and strengthen global democratic institutions and human rights.

The funding will support new projects, including:

• CAD22 million (US$16 million) to defend human rights and promote inclusion;
• CAD6 million (US$4 million) to strengthen resilient democratic institutions; and
• CAD3 million (US$2 million) to counter foreign interference.

On March 19, 2024, Canada’s Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen announced CAD15 million (US$11 million) in development assistance funding for three projects in Iraq to support resilient food systems, climate change action, and gender empowerment.

Funding announced included:

• CAD5 million (US$4 million) to the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture’s Strengthening Evidence-Based Water Management project, which will improve sustainable water resource management;
• CAD5 million (US$4 million) to Action Against Hunger Canada’s Promoting Feminist Solutions to Climate Change-Driven Water and Food Insecurity, which will promote adoption of climate-smart approaches in food value chains and climate change governance by strengthening women’s rights organizations in drought-affected areas; and
• CAD5 million (US$4 million) to the National Democratic Institute’s Supporting Gender-Sensitive Local Governance Through Women’s Advisory Boards Program, which will strengthen women’s capacity to influence decisions on the allocation of resources in their communities.

On March 18, 2024, Canadian Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen announced CAD66 million (US$49 million) in funding for six international development projects to support sexual and reproductive health and rights, mental health, and education for women and girls in Mozambique.

Projects included:

• CAD20 million (US$15 million) to the University of Saskatchewan for their Sexual and Reproductive Health for Young Women in Inhambane project, which aims to improve sexual, reproductive and maternal health and rights in the province of Inhambane;
• CAD20 million (US$15 million) to Pathfinder International for Impacto II: Supporting Family Planning Services in Mozambique, which aims to improve gender equality, self-determination, and access to sexual and reproductive health services in the Tete and Manica provinces;
• CAD13 million (US$10 million) to the UNDP through Action for Girls and Young Women’s SRHR, which removes barriers that prevent young women from accessing sexual and reproductive health rights services;
• CAD7 million (US$5 million) to the WHO’s Improving Data for Better Health Systems project, which aims to improve the quality of data to facilitate decision-making on sexual, reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health;
• CAD5 million (US$4 million) to the University of Washington for the project Empower Mental Health, focused on strengthening existing health care and community-based systems of mental health care for underserved populations in the provinces of Manica and Sofala; and
• CAD1 million (US$1 million) to the Voluntary Service Overseas for their Empowering Adolescent Girls to Learn and Earn project, which aims to expand the basic literacy and numeracy of 3,000 out-of-school adolescent girls.

On March 11, 2024, the CLARE partnership between the UK and Canada’s IDRC launched 17 research projects designed to build climate resilience and reduce vulnerability in LICs and LMICs, valued at CAD180 million (US$133 million).

The research projects aim to support socially inclusive and sustainable action to build resilience to climate change and natural hazards in African partners and the Asia-Pacific region. Researchers in recipient countries are leading or co-leading the research, which will embed gender equality and inclusion principles and will address a wide range of climate change issues in the fields of agriculture, health, urban adaptation, water security, among others.

On March 7, 2024, Canada is launching new research projects on care work, valued at CAD25 million (US$19 million).

The research aims to develop policy and program solutions with African partner countries to transform the care landscape and address the disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care work that falls on women and girls in the region.

Announced in July 2023, the IDRC’s Scaling Care Innovations in Africa initiative is a five-year partnership between Global Affairs Canada and IDRC. The initiative selected 17 locally-led research teams that will assess how to scale pilot-tested innovations addressing the unequal responsibility for unpaid care work that women and girls face. Seven projects will focus on policy-oriented solutions and 10 will research program-based solutions.

The projects operate in several countries, including Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Benin, Ghana, Ethiopia, Côte D'Ivoire, among others. The research projects were developed in line with the "triple R” framework, which calls for action to recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care work.

On February 28, 2024, Cooperation Canada launched their Global Landscape Analysis of the international cooperation sector, a report of IDRC's Futures Initiative, which encompasses extensive research to provide a comprehensive outlook of the trends, challenges, and emerging issues impacting international development cooperation for the coming decade.

The report focused on five issue areas that present pressing challenges to international development: political, environmental, social, economic, and technological. It examined geopolitical shifts impacting issues, including climate change, gender equality, education, healthcare, and civil liberties.

The report was intended to be the first step to achieving the project’s goal of defining three transformative scenarios for global development cooperation. The report recommended that CSOs adopt innovative strategies in the face of a volatile international development cooperation landscape, including:

• Strategic foresight: Implementing a systemic approach to anticipate challenges, explore alternative futures, and identify strategic opportunities;
• Integrative thinking: Bringing siloes and developing holistic approaches that engage diverse stakeholders and systems;
• Impact communication: Demonstrating impact and effectively communicating results and tangible outcomes, in the face of shrinking funding pools; and
• Diversification of revenue streams: Diversifying revenue sources to bolster financial resilience in the face of challenges such as diminishing contributions from ODA and shrinking civic space.

On February 27, 2024, at the 46^th Regular Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM in Guyana, Canadian Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen announced a total of CAD169 million (US$124 million) to support initiatives in climate, health, gender equality, and more in multiple Caribbean countries.

Funding included:

• CAD120 million (US$88 million) over 10 years to the Government of Guyana through a policy-based loan to strengthen the protection of marginalized populations, promote gender empowerment, and deliver social programs by enhancing the capacity of Guyana’s Ministry of Human Services and Social Security. The loan includes a climate-resilient debt clause in the event of a climate incident or disaster, as well as a technical assistance facility of CAD5 million (US$4 million) over 4 years to support the implementation of activities;
• CAD39 million (US$29 million) for four new international assistance projects with activities in Haiti, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname. The projects will support climate and biodiversity conservation, economic resilience, sustainable and inclusive governance, food security, health, and gender equality; and
• CAD10 million (US$7 million) to a new partnership with the Government of Guyana in support of their One Guyana Digital Skills Development Programme, which will promote economic opportunities and gender equality by providing training for the digital economy to thousands of young Guyanese.