Canada approaching irrelevance in Africa, experts warn
Canada is approaching total irrelevance in the world's fastest-growing continent, experts argue, saying that a pattern of disengagement in trade, diplomacy and investment in Africa means Ottawa is ceding ground to Russia and China.
"Africa is going to friend-zone Canada if the current approach remains, because it's lukewarm," said Stanley Achonu, the Nigeria director for the One Campaign.
His organization, which fights extreme poverty and preventable diseases, testified this week at the Senate foreign-affairs committee, which is looking into Canada's relations with a continent on track to almost double in population by 2050.
The Liberals have promised an Africa strategy for years. The long-overdue document was described last year as a framework and has not yet been released.
In recent years, senators have warned Canada is falling behind its peers, as well as emerging states, in setting strategies for trade and development with a continent of more than one billion people.
They note that Africa makes up the majority of the world's potential for solar panels, and has huge reserves of critical minerals and carbon-reducing ecosystems. The World Bank says a looming continental free-trade deal could lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty and inject US$3.4 trillion into African economies.
But to get there, Africa needs better governance, huge infrastructure projects and debt restructuring, according to Christopher MacLennan, Canada's top bureaucrat overseeing foreign aid.
Nicolas Moyer, the head of educational non-profit Cuso International, testified that Canada is losing clout in countries where Beijing and Moscow are gaining influence and undercutting the outsized role Ottawa had in previous decades of development work.
"Canada actually needs Africa more than Africa needs Canada," said Moyer, whose group was formerly called Canadian University Service Overseas.
"The longer our distance with Africa persists, the more challenging it will be to repair the relationships and to build upon those for the future."
Moyer said much of Africa could be a key partner to Canada the way South Korea evolved to be. The country remembers Canada's sacrifice in the Korean War and decades of development work, and is now an economic powerhouse that sees Ottawa as a key partner in everything from artificial intelligence to natural-gas imports.
Moyer noted that Canadian investments have helped sow real change across Africa, for example with the Liberals and Conservatives focusing on maternal health and educational access for women.
Those investments have led to fewer teen pregnancies and lower rates of child marriage that have helped drastically reduce infant mortality rates.
"Canada can be a leader on the African continent, if not with the power of its purse, then with conviction, coherence and a long-term commitment to our partners," Moyer said, but that will require "resisting distractions, of which there are many, to change our directions."
That would require a decolonial approach of identifying what Africans want, and playing a supporting role in advancing those goals, such as by organizing international summits.
In places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Moyer's group has helped support gender and sexual minorities by funding entrepreneurship projects for them.
That gives marginalized people a foothold in the economy so they can pursue their own projects, like using radio programs to fight anti-gay stigma in a way that isn't seen as imposing Western values.
Achonu said Canada's focus on LGBTQS2+ rights will go further if African countries feel respected and see that Ottawa is looking to invest in their success instead of lecturing on social issues, a strategy he said risks make engagement "dead on arrival."
"Building partnership first will open the door for future conversations around rights," he said.
Many of these recommendations are echoed in a report last July by Co-operation Canada, an umbrella group of development organizations, that said countries from Japan to India had already published strategies on how to engage with Africa.
It proposed Canada focus on working with civil society groups in Africa, arguing many of the issues that ail the continent require working with more than just government officials and preventing authoritarian governance.
Achonu also said Ottawa should help provide low-cost financing for infrastructure projects by tripling its funding for FinDev, the development-financing institution.
He noted the government increased the agency's budget for work in the Indo-Pacific by $750 million last year, and said a similar increase would help get African projects built.
Achonu said China's popularity in Africa partially comes from branding exercises.
"All over Africa, you see concrete infrastructure that you can point to ... financed by China or built by Chinese companies through loans. But I can't say that about the Western partners who want Africa on their side," he said.
Part of the issue is that Canada tends to fund programming instead of construction projects, he noted.
"Are there tangible things that Africans can point to and say 'built by Canada' or 'done by Canada?' And I'm not saying this lightly -- Canada saves lives, the investment you make in critical areas like health are not fancy."
MacLennan testified that Canadian officials still get a warm welcome in Africa, and he said Ottawa doesn't face the same pressure as European peers who have a more visible presence in Africa because Canada's geographic location requires it to also focus on having a visible presence in the Indo-Pacific.
The International Development Research Centre, a federal Crown corporation, argued that Canada is maintaining its relevance in Africa in part by collaborating with individual countries.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2024.
IN DEPTH
Jagmeet Singh pulls NDP out of deal with Trudeau Liberals, takes aim at Poilievre Conservatives
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled his party out of the supply-and-confidence agreement that had been helping keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberals in power.
'Not the result we wanted': Trudeau responds after surprise Conservative byelection win in Liberal stronghold
Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
'We will go with the majority': Liberals slammed by opposition over proposal to delay next election
The federal Liberal government learned Friday it might have to retreat on a proposal within its electoral reform legislation to delay the next vote by one week, after all opposition parties came out to say they can't support it.
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government鈥檚 three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party鈥檚 popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn鈥檛 be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Tensions run high on the Hill as MPs debate second Conservative motion of non-confidence
Members of Parliament debated the second Conservative motion of non-confidence in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government of the week on Thursday, amid simmering tensions.
WATCH LIVE Helene strengthens to a Category 4 hurricane as it nears Florida's Gulf Coast
Helene strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane hours ahead of its expected landfall on Florida's northwest coast Thursday night, and forecasters warned that the enormous storm could create a 'nightmare' surge in coastal areas and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S.
Cold case arrest: Nunavut RCMP charge man with murder in 1986 death of teenage girl
Mounties in Nunavut have made an arrest in the murder of a 15-year-old girl almost 40 years ago.
Scammers are increasingly using emails to extort money from victims by threatening to reveal compromising photos, videos and personal information to their friends and family members, according to a new warning from Mounties in Metro Vancouver.
An Air Canada flight headed to Toronto from Frankfurt diverted to Edinburgh due to an emergency Thursday, the airline says.
Canadian singer K鈥檔aan has been charged with sexual assault after being arrested by police in Quebec City.
An NDP MP has introduced a bill that would criminalize residential school denialism, saying it would help stop harm caused toward survivors, their families and communities.
Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard's defence lawyer continued her cross-examination of the complainant in his sexual assault trial in a northeastern Ontario court today, where he has pleaded not guilty.
Masking reintroduced in N.S. hospitals as respiratory illnesses increase
A partial masking mandate has returned to Nova Scotia hospitals and provincially run healthcare facilities for visitors and healthcare workers.
Local Spotlight
A pizza chain in Edmonton claims to have the world's largest deliverable pizza.
Sarah McLachlan is returning to her hometown of Halifax in November.
Wayne MacKay is still playing basketball twice at Mount Allison University at 87 years old.
A man from a small rural Alberta town is making music that makes people laugh.
An Indigenous artist has a buyer-beware warning ahead of Sept. 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Police are looking to the public for help after thieves broke into a Lethbridge ice creamery, stealing from the store.
An ordinary day on the job delivering mail in East Elmwood quickly turned dramatic for Canada Post letter carrier Jared Plourde. A woman on his route was calling out in distress.
Fire has destroyed a barn and 17,000 plants at a family-owned business in Lower Coverdale, N.B.
Before influencers on social media, Canada鈥檚 Jeanne Beker was bringing the world of high fashion down to earth and as Calgary鈥檚 Glenbow Museum gets a major make-over, it will include a new exhibition showcasing the pop culture icon.