Shams's blog

 A very interesting article in the Embassy that I wanted to share:

What is Development Effectiveness?

What is the relationship between Aid Effectiveness and Development Effectiveness?

BCCIC recently participated at a national Forum on Civil Society Development Effectiveness hosted by the Canadian Council for International Cooperation. I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the current events on the global scene. This is especially relevant as we  start our new three year program - and yes, BCCIC has received funding for 2011-2014 from CIDA. We hosted a memberhsip meeting and our first lunch and learn and I wanted to share the discussion and documents presented with  all of you.

In the last five years, governments, official donors, and civil society organizations have been attempting to define how to improve the impact and quality of development processes globally.  Country governments and donors have signed on to “The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness” (March 2005) and “The Accra Agenda for Action” ( AAA) (September 2008). Civil society organizations were recognized in the AAA and there was a commitment ‘to work with CSOs to provide an enabling environment that maximizes their contributions to development’.

We experimented with a different way to network and learn during a learning circle with members, partners and individuals working in the Great Lakes Region. 12 different organizations implementing programs in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo came together to explore issues of collaboration, how we choose our partners, and public engagement in Canada around our work.

The Minister of International Cooperation, Beverly J. Oda announced CIDA's new strategy to stimulate sustainable economic growth. The strategy has three paths: building economic foundations, growing businesses and investing in people. Minister Oda also announced $155.3 million in funding for projects supporting this strategy. More details are available on the CIDA website here.

This September, 2010 marks 10 years since the signing by 189 world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 to end poverty.  The UN High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the MDGs was held in New York recently.  So have we made progress? There are many points of view on this.    

Reprinted from http://www.straight.com/article-332104/vancouver/scott-andrews-g20-shows-canadians-cant-take-human-rights-rule-law-granted

Scott Andrews: G20 shows Canadians can't take human rights, rule of law for granted