Effectively Engaging Diasporas Under the New Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

With the amalgamation of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) into a new Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), new opportunities will emerge for a coherent approach to diaspora engagement initiatives that combine the existing policy directions under a single umbrella. DFATD should work with diasporas in Canada to facilitate and improve engagement with the sending regions. This engagement can occur through current programs, as well as the creation of a new pilot project requiring cooperation between the different policy approaches. Engagement should vary according to the different levels of formal government diasporic engagement of the sending countries, as countries with weak government engagement will require policy approaches distinct from countries with strong government engagement

Local Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Cuba (Proyecto COSTASURESTE)

Local Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Southeast Cuba (COSTASURESTE, 2010-2015) was a project funded through the University Partnerships in Cooperation and Development Program (UPCD)’s ScalingUp Competition launched in 2008. The Project received funding for the 2010-2013 period and subsequently received extensions by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 2013 and Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) in 2014, with a revised termination date of 30 April 2015. COSTASURESTE extended the results of the base project (UPCD Tier II: Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Cuba, 1999-2004, Project No. 098/S47074-287)

A DANGEROUS WORLD: STEPHEN HARPER’S POST-MAIDAN UKRAINE POLICY

The thesis puts forward a neoclassical realist theory of the Harper government’s response to the Ukrainian crisis, which draws upon a number of theories, including Power Transition theory, to examine the determinative role played by variables at the system-, unit-, and individual-levels of analysis. The Ukrainian crisis was enmeshed in a broader struggle between state actors with different and competing visions of world order – highlighting the importance of system-level incentives and constraints. The Harper government’s response to the crisis nonetheless reflected Mr. Harper’s ideas and vision of world order, which differed substantially from his predecessors. Amidst the most serious geopolitical crisis of the post-Cold War era, these ideational differences conditioned the shape and direction of Canada’s response in important ways, affecting the Harper government’s response with an unusual degree of robustness and urgency. Individual-level variables including ideology are of particular importance to understanding the shape and direction of the Harper government’s response. Nevertheless, Mr. Harper’s worldview did not emerge in a vacuum. Unit-level variables including elite culture played a critical role in shaping Mr. Harper’s threat assessments and strategic preferences – which were reflective of his worldview. Thus, as the thesis will demonstrate, the Harper government’s response to the Ukrainian crisis was shaped by determinants at all three levels of analysis

Performing Internationalization of Higher Education in Canadian National Policy

Internationalization processes are at the fore of university strategic plans on a global scale. However, the work of internationalization is being performed through the connections between many actors at different policy levels. Our purpose here is to ask, what is happening with internationalization of higher education at the Canadian national policy level? To do so, we suggest that we must look at policies at the national level not as individual entities but rather as these policies exist in relation to each other. We examine three recent policy statements from different organizations at the national level in Canada: a federal governmental agency, a pan-Canadian provincial organization and a national educational association. Our approach involved mapping the actors, knowledges and spaces that are discursively produced through these texts and engaging a relational approach to policy analysis that questions what comes to be assembled as these policies co-exist in the national landscape.  À l’échelle mondiale, les processus d’internationalisation se trouvent à l’avant-centre des plans stratégiques universitaires. Toutefois, le travail d’internationalisation s’effectue par des relations entre de nombreux acteurs, à différents niveaux de politique générale. Nous étudions le statut d’internationalisation de l’enseignement supérieur à l’échelle des politiques nationales du Canada. Nous émettons la possibilité d’étudier les politiques à l’échelle nationale, plutôt qu’à une échelle individuelle. Nous analysons également comment ces politiques coexistent entre elles. Nous décortiquons trois récents énoncés de politique émis par différentes organisations de niveau national au Canada : une agence fédérale gouvernementale, une organisation provinciale pancanadienne et une association éducative nationale. Notre approche consistait à cartographier les acteurs, à analyser les connaissances et espaces produits de manière discursive par ces énoncés de politique, et à entreprendre une approche relationnelle d’analyse de politiques qui remet les énoncés en cause, tandis que ces politiques coexistent sur la scène nationale

Realising the Africa mining vision: the role of government-initiated international development think-tanks

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Building a Stronger System for Tracking Nutrition-Sensitive Spending: A Methodology and Estimate of Global Spending for Nutrition-Sensitive Foreign Aid

Background: There is growing awareness that the necessary solutions for improving nutrition outcomes are multisectorial. As such, investments are increasingly directed toward nutrition-sensitive approaches that not only address an underlying or basic determinant of nutrition but also seek to achieve an explicit nutrition goal or outcome. Understanding how and where official development assistance (ODA) for nutrition is invested remains an important but complex challenge, as development projects components vary in their application to nutrition outcomes. Currently, no systematic method exists for tracking nutrition-sensitive ODA. Objective: To develop a methodology for classifying and tracking nutrition-sensitive ODA and to produce estimates of the amount of nutrition-sensitive aid received by countries with a high burden of undernutrition. Methods: We analyzed all financial flows reported to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development\u27s Development Assistance Committee Creditor Reporting Service in 2010 to estimate these investments. We assessed the relationships between national stunting prevalence, stunting burden, under-5 mortality, and the amount of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive ODA. Results: We estimate that, in 2010, a total of $379.4 million (M) US dollars (USD) was committed to nutrition-specific projects and programs of which 25 designated beneficiaries (countries and regions) accounted for nearly 85$320 M). A total of $1.79 billion (B) was committed to nutrition-sensitive spending, of which the top 25 countries/regions accounted for$1.4 B (82%). Nine categories of development activities accounted for 75% of nutrition-sensitive spending, led by Reproductive Health Care (30.4%), Food Aid/Food Security Programs (14.1%), Emergency Food Aid (13.2%), and Basic Health Care (5.0%). Multivariate linear regression models indicate that the amount of nutrition-sensitive (P = .001) and total nutrition ODA was significantly predicted by stunting prevalence (P = .001). The size of the total population of stunted children significantly predicted the amount of nutrition-specific ODA (P \u3c .001). Conclusion: The recipient profile of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive ODA is related but distinct. Nutrition indicators are associated with the level of nutrition-related ODA commitments to recipient countries. A reliable estimate of nutrition spending is critical for effective planning by both donors and recipients and key for success, as the global development community recommits to a new round of goals to address the interrelated causes of undernutrition in low-income countries

Case 2 : Understanding and Developing Conceptual Frameworks and Causal Models in Maternal and Child Health Programming

This case attempts to help students understand the various terminologies (“frameworks”, “pathways”, “models”, etc.) used by organizations in planning, implementing, and evaluating programs and interventions. It is based on the work done by the Center for Global Health at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto on the Knowledge Management Initiative (KMI) of the Muskoka Initiative Consortium (MIC). The case starts by reprising the Muskoka I and II Initiatives, and then focuses on the global context before narrowing down to programs and interventions for maternal health in Mali

The absence of gender in Canadian foreign policy: Candian policies toward South Africa

Using a postcolonial feminist perspective, this thesis investigates gender in Canadian foreign policy toward South Africa, specifically toward HIV/AIDS programs, during the Harper era. This thesis shows that other than a superficial inclusion in the discourse, there was an absence of gender in Canadian foreign policy, under the Harper government. Moreover, there was a lack of attention paid to the complexity of HIV/AIDS and GBV intersection, and there was only a shallow effort by DFATD to prompt inclusion of gender while local practitioners had a keen understanding of the intersection. The absence in the Harper government discourse and practice showed a lack of understanding of the complexity of the issue, which is the lived experience of those on the ground in South Africa.Candian foreign policySouth AfricaHIV/AIDSgende