Canada is a wealthy nation in a world of increasing inequality.

Canada's Contributions

1. Development Assistance

In 1990 the United Nations recommended that developed countries aim to give 0.7% of their gross national income to poor countries as development assistance. Since then, this has become the standard by which developed countries are judged. Canada has never met this target - the highest percentage we have ever given in development assistance was 0.53%, in 1975, under Prime Minister Trudeau . Since then, Canadian aid has fluctuated, but has fallen throughout the mid 1990s to 0.30% in 2006. Canada ranks 15th among the major donor countries in terms of gross national income (GNI)

Canada was a founding member of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. In 1968 the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was established, with a mandate to provide development assistance to poor countries. In 1970 the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) was created as a public corporation to fund research to support work with developing countries.

2. Debt relief

Canada has been largely supportive of the movement to erase the debt of countries in the global south. Prime Minister Martin was a strong advocate of this cause while in office. He participated in the 2005 Group of 8 (G8) Summit of Industrialized countries in Gleneagles Scotland, which produced a commitment to cancel debt as part of what is called the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) . To date, the HIPC has freed approximately $2 billion in savings for countries that qualify, most of which are in Africa. Canada made a firm, unqualified pledge of $30 million to the International Development Association (a part of the World Bank) for 2007-2008, and a qualified pledge of $79 million for 2009-16. While this debt relief is a positive step, some point out that it has made only a small dent in the existing debt burdens of countries of the global south and has often come with difficult and restrictive conditions.

3. Millennium Development Goals

In 2000, 187 countries, including Canada, came together at the United Nations to create the 8 Millennium Development Goals dedicated to eliminating extreme poverty and creating a more equitable world by 2015. The countries pledged their support to the following goals:

· Goal 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty

· Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

· Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

· Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

· Goal 5: Improve maternal health

· Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

· Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

· Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

The goals involve a partnership between the rich countries and the poor countries "to create an environment at the national and global levels alike which is conducive to development and the elimination of poverty". Halfway to 2015, the world has made progress. Reduction in extreme poverty is evident throughout the global south. Most dramatically since 2000, more than 34 million additional children in the developing world gained the chance to attend and complete primary school. More than 550 million children were vaccinated against measles, driving down measles deaths in Africa by 75 %. The number of developing-country AIDS patients with access to antiretroviral treatment increased from 240,000 in 2001 to over 1.6 million at mid-2006" . However, "all regions are off-track on the child mortality goal, and several regions are off-track on at least some of the other MDGs. The two regions that lag the furthest behind are South Asia (SAR) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)" . The two greatest obstacles to achieving the MDGs by 2015 flow from the difficulties involved in achieving equality for women and the challenge of working with fragile states .

4. Make Poverty History Campaign

In 2005 campaigns led by many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were launched around the world to combat poverty and pressure governments to keep their commitments to the Millennium Development Goals. Canada launched its own Make Poverty History campaign linked to other global efforts (www.makepovertyhistory.ca). This campaign "calls for urgent and meaningful policy change" based on four demands :

1. more and better aid - by increasing aid by 15% every year we could reach the UN target by 2015.

2. trade justice - by pressing for better trade and investment rules that protect poor countries .

3. debt cancellation - by pressuring the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to grant immediate and unconditional debt cancellation for the global south.

4. end child poverty in Canada (one in six Canadian children is poor) - by raising the annual Canada Child Tax Benefit to $4,900 per child and involving the vulnerable sectors of the population in designing and implementing a domestic poverty reduction strategy.

This campaign is working to uphold the eighth Millennium Development Goal of establishing a global partnership between rich and poor countries. Canadian NGOs have been very vocal advocates for this campaign although some observe that their advocacy has only been partially successful in altering Canadian policy.

Next section: Future directions