PLEASE NOTE: POINTS OF ORDER- Sponsoring refugees is a huge amount of work...and care and compassion and a lot of time and faith and being there embracing them for at least 3-5 years. ALSO: ensuring that if u sponsor them... they promise:

1) to stay in Canada

2) keep their money in Canada

3) not turn around and move to the big cities as soon as they are landed and fill their temporary refugee promise with the church groups or which ever 'recognized' group sponsors them in communities across Canada

4) When they get their Canada Citizenship, they stay in Canada not hide their tax money back in the country they refugeed from.....

5) STAY IN CANADA AND ACCEPT CANADA'S INCLUSIVENESS- we love our gays and women equal men by law in Canada... and be part of Canada and mean it... imho
----------------

QUOTE:
This was not some humanitarian problem distant from the center of U.S. interests. It was a crisis at the heart of the Middle East that produced a vacuum of sovereignty that has attracted and empowered some of the worst people in the world. Inaction was a conscious, determined choice on the part of the Obama White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus advocated arming favorable proxies. Sunni friends and allies in the region asked, then begged, for U.S. leadership. All were overruled or ignored.
In the process, Syria has become the graveyard of U.S. credibility. The chemical weapons “red line.” “The tide of war is receding.” “Don’t do stupid [stuff].” These are global punch lines. “The analogy we use around here sometimes,” said Obama of the Islamic State, “and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Now the goal to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State looks unachievable with the current strategy and resources. “The time has come for President Assad to step aside,” said Obama in 2011. Yet Assad will likely outlast Obama in power.
What explains Obama’s high tolerance for humiliation and mass atrocities in Syria? The Syrian regime is Iran’s proxy, propped up by billions of dollars each year. And Obama wanted nothing to interfere with the prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran. He was, as Hof has said, “reluctant to offend the Iranians at this critical juncture.” So the effective concession of Syria as an Iranian zone of influence is just one more cost of the president’s legacy nuclear agreement.
Never mind that Iran will now have tens of billions of unfrozen assets to strengthen Assad’s struggling military. And never mind that Assad’s atrocities are one of the main recruiting tools for the Islamic State and other Sunni radicals. All of which is likely to extend a war that no one can win, which has incubated regional and global threats — and thrown a small body in a red T-shirt against a distant shore.

At many points during the past four years, even relatively small actions might have reduced the pace of civilian casualties in Syria. How hard would it have been to destroy the helicopters dropping barrel bombs on neighborhoods? A number of options well short of major intervention might have reduced the regime’s destructive power and/or strengthened the capabilities of more responsible forces. All were untaken.
The horrific results of Obama’s failure in Syria

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-horrific-results-of-obamas-strategy-in-syria/2015/09/03/c16c117a-526c-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html
---------------

2015 Charity 100: A smarter way to give

It’s the holiday season and time to help others. But how can you make sure your donation will be spent wisely? Our annual Charity 100 grades can help

http://www.moneysense.ca/planning/2015-charity-100-a-smarter-way-to-give/

-----

WAYLON JENNINGS-

Uploaded on Mar 30, 2008

Great version done by ol' Waylon. Remember all victims of Katrina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkTp4okg2ik

WHY IS KATRINA STILL A MESS? WORLD DONATED ABOUT $160,000 PER FAMILY

personal:

I am not getting this at all. When Katrina happened, millions globally donated to the Katrina cause and the facts came in that enough money was raised federally, personally and globally to give each family $160,000 tax free USA currency. Keep in mind that all these " Well- Known Star Democrats" never stepped up to helped one little but ... because the president was George W. Bush (like that should matter in time of crisis). And yet somewhere, somehow .... this situation is the same. Where is all the money that we raised globally from our pockets; regardless of the democrat star power ... refusing to do a darn thing?   What the heck is going on here.

Then ...

We go to Afgahnistan and we Canadians and Coalitions have been there since 2002 fighting a NATO and UN driven war (and always and forever- September 11, 2001 when the innocent blood of our brothers and sisters died in the beautiful and loved city of New York).   We spend all these years in Afgahnistan... and, boy, the successes are historic.... except ... for all the incredible development- roads, schools, hosptials, village rebuilding, refarming crops not poppies etc.... get blown up, wasted and destroyed- as the Afghan populations just stands by and watch their future go down the tubes.

And finally Canadians have the courage to say the truth... look this is all for Afghanistan and for you the people... and if you aren't going to take full part in the process of making your country one of the greatest on the planet and building a life of education and prosperity for your girl and boy children... then why are we here; we are all going home to our own loved ones, our country and our communities and our military service? (Vance 2009-Canada-Kandahar..psst only Peter Mackay backed the military leaders and troops in Afghanistan...and we know it)

We are told many stories; however, Canadian miltiary, militia and reservists and coalitions are getting right into the communities and walking one and one with the Afghan people (and they love them and see who incredible their lives could be- we would expect no less). And we realize that the Afghan people do not have newspapers (so they cannot see the political infighting that can sometimes... and does... make Canadians and others loose sight of the real victory- freeing the Afghan people and getting their girl and boy children educated and having a prosperous life- and not terrorizing our free world again... ever); Afghans are looking at living from day to day and simply want peace; their mindset is focused on the realities of just surviving day to day.

However, about 40 per cent more Afghan peoples are waking up to what their future can be and are now pitching in because they trust us and because they see our Canadians and Coalitions in their uniforms day in and day out- protecting, building, rebuilding and physically and mentally supporting each and every one right there on the ground in Afgahnistan and have been since 2002.

Our military, militia and reservists are the "pure and true" face of humanity and freedoms of our free world- the only face of humanity and human rights to these people living in Afghanistan. The Afghn citizens realize... they must jump that fence one way or the other; and have watched whist so many have... to us and to a better life... and education for their Afghan children.   Canada is telling the people ... you are responsible for these roads and all we have accomplished and all they beautiful things and necessary things we have worked so hard financially and physically to give you; if you CONTINUE to let the terrorists destory it all... and not do a darn thing- then it's your fault.

   Finally- courage. It's like Iraq- it's now free- take charge and keep and continue with your democracy- this is your legacy- don't ruin it. Zimbabwe wants our military to come and save them too- see the shackled and downtrodden knows who the real workers and doers are in this world... and they wear a uniform and flag on a patch of our free world.

There are so many parrallels; in my personal view.

Where is the drive, courage (like our forefathers and mothers), energy and the dream to make New Orleans and the Gulf great ...if not even greater than it was for their children and so on.

Where is the honesty and the fact that in crises all people come together regardless of political beliefs, or religious, race, creed and so on. For God's sake.... shame on you.   This all should have been done long ago.   Get off your butts and get r done... seriously.   We look at our charities and giving to help so many causes and others.... (and this is one- Katrina is a huge money raised for our American brothers and sisters and our own) that simply sucks the life force out of me.    I am tired of looking at sad and weepy and discouraged faces.... when on this day in New Orleans and the Gulf, when; to my personal view,   there should be rejoicing... and the rebuilding pretty well done. What have these people actually been doing for themselves and New Orleans and the Gulf to rebuild with their hands to their soil and get their life moving forwards and upwards.    My God... what would our grandparents and great, great grandparents ... and theirs think of this whole world.

Where are the youth volunteers? Why aren't the North American Youth doing right on the ground projects with a small stipend and goals that must be reached - doing New Orleans and the whole Gulf area.

What are the families themselves doing?    Vounteer work teams doing area by area.... helping each other out and getting by like good communities do.

The worst shame of Katrina; in my personal view, is that the American people did not all come together to one table; whilst throwing out their crap politics and garbage in the face of real emmergency and tragedy and thus make Katrina a pure triumph over the weather. They could be showing the people who live there along side of them.... and the whole world- that all and any adversity can be overcome. After all this is the beautiful and precious United States of America. OMG-   shame, shame, shame. This is NOT President Bush's fault.... this is America's fault.... and New Orleans and the Gulf citizens have to step up... we put a lot of our personal money into different pots for Katrina help and rebuilding- and have webeen totally let down... in our beautiful and precious North America (after all the USA like our Canada is considered very young compared to the age of all other countries on the planet). Why Canadians actually went there and helped for months and months with not a penny in their pockets themselves... because that's how we do things... and so do our neighbours of the USA.   Our parents would never accept or allow this- and they had not a damn penny in their pockets... but we had family and community and determination (that's about all WWII left us). So get to it people!

Lethargy is a horrible word... and not a fair one to hide behind. Afghan must take more responsibility for their own and their country (like Canada's General Vance said 209) and New Orleans and the Gulf must get r done. This is a very frightening piece of news because what happens if we lift the cover and actually see how New Orleans has progressed with the over $160,000 tax free per family we all have raised. MY PERSONAL OPINION

******
---

Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed

By John Solomon and Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 29, 2007

As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.

Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" -- a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again -- the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving."

Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims.

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

The struggle to apply foreign aid in the aftermath of the hurricane, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 billion so far, is another reminder of the federal government's difficulty leading the recovery. Reports of government waste and delays or denials of assistance have surfaced repeatedly since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.

Administration officials acknowledged in February 2006 that they were ill prepared to coordinate and distribute foreign aid and that only about half the $126 million received had been put to use. Now, 20 months after Katrina, newly released documents and interviews make clear the magnitude of the troubles.

More than 10,000 pages of cables, telegraphs and e-mails from U.S. diplomats around the globe -- released piecemeal since last fall under the Freedom of Information Act -- provide a fuller account of problems that, at times, mystified generous allies and left U.S. representatives at a loss for an explanation. The documents were obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a public interest group, which provided them to The Washington Post.

In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina's landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. "Tell them we blew it," one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded."

In another instance, the Department of Homeland Security accepted an offer from Greece on Sept. 3, 2005, to dispatch two cruise ships that could be used free as hotels or hospitals for displaced residents. The deal was rescinded Sept. 15 after it became clear a ship would not arrive before Oct. 10. The U.S. eventually paid $249 million to use Carnival Cruise Lines vessels.

And while television sets worldwide showed images of New Orleans residents begging to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters rose, U.S. officials turned down countless offers of allied troops and search-and-rescue teams. The most common responses: "sent letter of thanks" and "will keep offer on hand," the new documents show.

Overall, the United States declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain and Israel, according to a 40-page State Department table of the offers that had been received as of January 2006.

"There is a lack of accountability in where the money comes in and where it goes," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the public interest group, which called for an investigation into the fate of foreign aid offers. She added: "It's clear that they're trying to hide their ineptitude, incompetence and malfeasance."

In a statement, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that the U.S. government sincerely appreciated support from around the world and that Katrina had proved to be "a unique event in many ways."

"As we continue our planning for the future, we will draw on the lessons learned from this experience to ensure that we make the best use of any possible foreign assistance that might be offered," Casey said.

Representatives of foreign countries declined to criticize the U.S. response to their aid offers, though some redirected their gifts.

Of $454 million in cash that was pledged by more than 150 countries and foreign organizations, only $126 million from 40 donors was actually received. The biggest gifts were from the United Arab Emirates, $100 million; China and Bahrain, $5 million each; South Korea, $3.8 million; and Taiwan, $2 million.

Bader Bin Saeed, spokesman for the Emirates Embassy in Washington, said that in future disasters, "the UAE would not hesitate to help other countries, whether the U.S. or any other state, in humanitarian efforts."

Kuwait, which made the largest offer, pledged $100 million in cash and $400 million in oil. But the Kuwaitis eventually gave their money to two private groups: $25 million to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, a project of the former presidents, and another $25 million to the American Red Cross in February 2006. They still plan to contribute another $50 million, said the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, Salem Abdullah al-Jaber al-Sabah.

"It was based on my government's assessment of the fastest way to get money to the people that needed it," he said. "The Red Cross was on the ground and action-oriented."

In the White House's February 2006 Katrina report, U.S. officials said Kuwait's $400 million oil donation was to be sold for cash. Sabah said it was an in-kind pledge made when it appeared that U.S. refining capacity was devastated and that the American public would need fuel.

"We have to see what we have to do with that. When you pledge something in-kind, your intention is to give it in-kind. I do not think now the American people are in need of $400 million of fuel and fuel products," he said.

Of the $126 million in cash that has been received, most has not yet been used. More than $60 million was set aside in March 2006 to rebuild schools, colleges and universities, but so far, only $10.4 million has been taken by schools.

Half the $60 million was awarded last fall to 14 Louisiana and Mississippi colleges, but five have not started to claim the money. Only Dillard University in Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College have tapped their full awards, worth $6 million, U.S. Education Department officials said Friday.

Another $30 million was sent to Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes in Louisiana and to the state-run Recovery School District in New Orleans to build libraries, laboratories and other facilities for 130 public schools.

But none of that money has been used yet, said Meg Casper, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Education. Allocations were just approved by the state board last week, she said, "so the money should start to flow."

The first concrete program officials announced in October 2005 -- a $66 million contract to a consortium of 10 faith-based and charity groups to provide social services to displaced families -- so far has assisted less than half the 100,000 victims it promised to help, the project director said.

The group, led by the United Methodist Committee on Relief, has spent $30 million of the money it was given to aid about 45,000 evacuees. Senate investigators are questioning some terms in the contract proposal, including a provision to pay consultants for 450 days to train volunteers for the work the committee was paid to do.

Jim Cox, the program director, said that the project is "right on track" but that its strategy of relying on volunteers foundered because of burnout and high turnover. He acknowledged that more people need help than are receiving it and said the program will be extended to March to use available funds.

"The resources aren't there, but these resources certainly are coming," Cox said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801113_2.html

--------------

Katrina aid defended
'We will not forget about the Gulf Coast,' Obama assures residents
NEW ORLEANS — Insisting he’s "just getting started," President Barack Obama defended his administration Thursday against complaints from some residents of the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast that federal help in recovering from the 2005 disasters hasn’t improved much since he took office.
"We’ve got a long way to go but we’ve made progress," Obama told a town hall at the University of New Orleans. "We’re working as hard as we can and as quickly as we can."
As a candidate, Obama criticized former President George W. Bush’s response to Katrina, when the government showed up late and unprepared and the Federal Emergency Management Agency became the object of widespread scorn.
The storm killed about 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi — and damage has been estimated at roughly $40 billion. The damage is still starkly visible in New Orleans — in blighted neighbourhoods of creaky houses, boarded-up businesses, structure after structure awaiting demolition and critical recovery work not yet started.
Obama wanted to use his first visit as president to the Gulf Coast to listen to residents’ concerns about the recovery effort. And although most questions were on unrelated subjects, one man gave him an earful.
"I expected as much from the Bush administration, but why are we still being nickeled and dimed in our recovery?" the man asked.
"I wish I could write a blank cheque," Obama replied, promoting the man to shout back, "Why not?"
Obama claimed progress since he entered the White House in January. He cited reconstruction projects that have moved forward after having been stalled by disagreements over whether the state or federal government would foot the bill. FEMA is working "around the clock to clear up red tape and to eliminate bureaucracy on backlogs that go back years," he said.
According to FEMA, 76 of the 120 Louisiana reconstruction projects that were stuck at the beginning of his presidency have been resolved, sending more than $1.4 billion in additional federal aid to Louisiana.
"I know since a lot of these problems have been going on since Katrina, people understandably feel impatient," Obama told the crowd of several hundred who won tickets in an Internet lottery to attend. "On the other hand, a lot of these things are not going to be fixed tomorrow."
Obama said officials from his administration have made 35 trips to the Gulf Coast since March — and "not just to make appearances, but to listen and to learn and help you move forward."
------

Canada’s top-rated charities

Photo gallery: Charities that earned an ‘A+’ grade in MoneySense’s annual Charity 100 ranking

Canadian Red Cross

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 87.6%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $17.59

Reserve Months: 8

Final Grade: A+

United Way of Calgary and Area

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 88.9%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $5.81

Reserve Months: 10

Final Grade: A+

Rick Hansen Institute

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 79.2%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $2.04

Reserve Months: 9

Final Grade: A+

Chalice Canada

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 91.6%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $3.98

Reserve Months: 5

Final Grade: A+

Compassion Canada

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 85.7%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $9.23

Reserve Months: 3

Final Grade: A+

Samaritan's Purse

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 90.1%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $3.22

Reserve Months: 4

Final Grade: A+

BC SPCA

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 76.1%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $15.56

Reserve Months: 7

Final Grade: A+

TIFF

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 75.4%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $9.82

Reserve Months: 3

Final Grade: A+

Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 95.6%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $0.56

Reserve Months: 3

Final Grade: A+

Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 88.8%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $9.33

Reserve Months: 2

Final Grade: A+

President's Choice Children's Charity

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 93.1%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $4.43

Reserve Months: 11

Final Grade: A+

War Amps of Canada

Charity Efficiency (Money to Cause): 90.6%

Fundraising Efficiency (Cost/$100): $1.40

Reserve Months: 12

Final Grade: A+

http://www.moneysense.ca/planning/2015-charity-100-canadas-top-rated-charities/image/13/

--------------

--------------

CANADA Foreign Aid

Foreign aid is assistance from rich, industrialized countries to poorer, developing countries. Since the 1950s Canada has been distributing cash, goods and services to poorer nations around the world. In 2012 the federal government's foreign aid spending totalled $5.67 billion (2.5 per cent of all federal spending). There is considerable debate about both the effectiveness of foreign aid and whether it should be used for purely humanitarian purposes, for economic development purposes, or to further Canada's strategic and commercial interests abroad.

How it Started

Foreign aid has its roots in post-Second World War Reconstruction. The success of the Marshall Plan in channelling resources from the United States to war-torn Europe convinced Western leaders that a similar transfer of resources to newly independent countries in Asia and Africa would likewise lead to rapid development. Canada's aid program began in this period of prevailing optimism.

In 1950, Canada joined the Colombo Plan to support the recently independent Commonwealth countries of Asia. During the next two decades, Canada's program grew steadily, expanding to include the Commonwealth Caribbean (1958), Commonwealth Africa (1960) and francophone Africa (1961). In 1970, the program was extended to Latin America.

How it Evolved

In the 1960s, the government decided to raise levels of aid to other countries. In 1968, three significant events occurred:

First, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was created to administer Canada's aid efforts); second, Pierre Trudeau, a man with an abiding interest in international development, became prime minister; and third, former Prime Minister Lester Pearson headed an international commission to examine the results of 20 years' of development assistance, and to propose policies for improvement. The commission's report, Partners in Development, called for donor countries to provide foreign aid equal to 0.70 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Canada accepted this target in 1970 and has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment, but by 1986 had achieved aid spending of only 0.46 per cent of GDP. Canada never hit Pearson’s 0.70 per cent target but reached 0.50 per cent in 1987 under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, according to a Library of Parliament report. That was followed by significant cuts to foreign aid in the 1990s, which reduced Canada's foreign aid spending to 0.25 per cent of GDP by 2000. In 2012 Canada's foreign aid spending was 0.31 per cent of GDP.

In 2013 the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper merged CIDA into the new Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

Government to Government Aid

In 2012 Canada's total aid spending of $5.67 billion was spread among 80 nations across the globe, and concentrated in about 20 countries. Ethiopia was the largest single recipient of Canadian aid, receiving $208 million, followed by Haiti ($205 million), Tanzania ($181 million) and Afghanistan ($163 million). Africa was the largest regional target in 2012, receiving 42 per cent of all Canadian aid that year, followed by Asia (22 per cent), and Latin America (17 per cent). Countries in Europe and other unspecified areas accounted for the rest.

Direct country-to-country (bilateral) aid accounted for about 13 per cent of Canadian aid spending in 2011. Bilateral aid to many countries, such as Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan is normally provided not in cash but in Canadian goods and services, including wheat and flour, railway locomotives and parts, equipment for hydroelectric generation and transmission, fertilizer, seeds and farm implements, and personnel to serve as advisers or instructors.

Multilateral aid, generally in cash, flows from Canada to many international quasi-government organizations, which undertake their own activities. Multilateral aid accounted for about 66 per cent of Canada's aid budget in 2011. The largest recipients were the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, and the specialized agencies of the United Nations such as the World Food Programme and the United Nations Children's Fund.

Aside from bilateral and multilateral spending, the remainder of Canada's foreign aid supports the International Development Research Centre — a crown corporation founded in 1970 to fund research on the needs of developing countries — and also dozens of Canadian non-governmental organizations in developing countries.

Non-Governmental Aid

Partly because of dissatisfaction with the results of government-to-government aid, industrialized countries have in recent decades allocated a share of their foreign aid to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Churches and other charitable organizations have long provided voluntary aid to developing countries, but only in recent decades have governments funded the work of NGOs.

In 2011, about 21 per cent of the federal government's foreign aid spending was channelled through nearly 500 NGOs or "civil society" organizations, ranging from large groups such as Care Canada and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to smaller operations such as Handicap International Canada and Ryan's Well Foundation. In recent decades there has been a tremendous expansion in the number of NGOs, including not only the traditional voluntary aid agencies, but also colleges and universities, co-operatives, professional associations, and unions.

Early NGO activities stressed emergency relief and welfare activities, including the shipment of food and clothing and the sponsorship of children and families. While such activities remain important (and highly visible), emphasis is now more often placed on longer-term development work geared to promoting local self-reliance, and often implemented via indigenous NGOs in developing nations.

While most NGO projects remain small and community-based, some agencies are beginning to take on larger infrastructure and service-delivery programs. Most NGOs believe that educating Canadians about international development is an integral part of their work. Supporters of NGOs claim that they possess several advantages over official aid channels — speed, flexibility, lower costs, innovativeness and, above all, an ability to reach the poorest effectively.

As the scale and complexity of NGO programs increases, so do the expectations of NGO performance and the demands upon them to prove their worth. At the same time, many fear that as NGOs change from idealistic do-gooders to professional development organizations, they may come to ignore their ultimate source of strength: the building of links between Canadians and the citizens of developing countries.

What is Foreign Aid For?

The purpose and effectiveness of foreign aid are subjects of ongoing debate. There is still no completely shared view in donor countries about what aid should do, or how best to do it. Some people believe rich, Western nations should assist less developed countries in order to maintain friendly relations. Others view underdevelopment as a product of exploitation by more industrialized countries, and see generous aid as a kind of reparation.

The prevailing motivation for Canadian foreign aid is a humanitarian concern for the many millions of people who are obviously far poorer than most Canadians. Disparities in living standards are so great and so far beyond the control of poor people that many Canadians view the obligation to help as one of basic justice, rather than of charity. Humanitarianism, however, is never the only motive, particularly for government-to-government aid. When the Canadian government allocates official development assistance, it is also influenced somewhat by commercial interests (developing sales and future markets for Canadian products) and by political interests (the desire to build or maintain good relations with the recipient government).

Does Foreign Aid Work?

Even when the primary motive is humanitarianism, there are tensions between the need for short-term assistance to relieve hardship and longer-term help to enable poor people to become more self-sufficient. The latter approach became more widely accepted, especially with the emphasis since the mid-1970s on "basic human needs" development. But it is proving frustratingly difficult to achieve quick or impressive results with this kind of aid. Existing power structures in many developing countries are themselves a major obstacle to improvements for poor people, and some experts believe that official aid often reinforces these structures, rather than making them more responsive.

Observers who are skeptical of government intervention in economic life have also raised doubts about the potential effectiveness of official aid, which by necessity is channelled through recipient governments. Critics such as Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo have argued that in Africa, aid creates harmful dependencies that hinder rather than help economic and political development. Others, such as experts with the North-South Institute, an independent think-tank, say that in the 1960s and 1970s, Western aid helped Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and South Korea develop their economies, raise their standards of living, and eventually become aid donors themselves, and that foreign aid has the potential to do the same for Africa.

In most developing countries, aid is a small part of total foreign investment and is concentrated where the private sector can rarely take a leading role. The success of foreign aid depends on the domestic efforts of developing countries and the whole range of other links between developed and developing nations.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/foreign-aid/

-------------------

How Canadians Can Help

During Major Disasters and Other Emergencies Abroad

Canadians feel strongly about helping to support communities affected by natural disasters and other emergencies abroad.
The best way to help: Donate money - not clothing or food - to experienced humanitarian organizations.

Why should you donate cash instead of goods?

Because cash donations are quick, efficient and adaptable.

Cash donations are the fastest, most efficient way to get help to people living in a disaster zone. They allow relief agencies to purchase quickly supplies based on the specific needs of the affected population.
Cash donations allow relief agencies to purchase goods and services in the
affected country or neighbouring areas. Your financial contribution in other words, is helping to

get aid to affected populations as quickly as possible, and
regenerate the local economy, which may have been seriously affected by the disaster.

In most cases, it is more cost-effective to purchase goods locally than to airlift supplies from far away, as fuel and aircraft costs can be very high. In addition local goods can be purchased in much less time than it takes to organize the logistics of an airlift from a distant country.
Culturally familiar goods can respond to humanitarian needs, as well as provide a small sense of comfort or normalcy to traumatized and displaced populations, which foreign, unfamiliar goods may not.

Why do governments and relief agencies discourage donations of food, clothing and other goods?

Because cash donations are more useful.

Relief workers on the ground can lose valuable time sorting through unmarked or inaccurately labelled boxes of privately donated goods when the necessary supplies can be purchased locally and cheaply.
Food, clothing and other goods may not be appropriate for the climate or the culture of the affected population. For example, survivors may need light-weight tents in the case of a hurricane in the summer, or winterized tents in the case of an earthquake in the winter.
If goods donated by the Canadian public are not appropriate for a given crisis, they may end up not being used, but will have been expensive to transport to the affected region.
In some parts of the world, items such as used clothing and blankets are subject to import regulations that call for fumigation for instance. If the goods have not been processed accordingly, they can be refused entry into the affected country, clog up air and seaports and thereby delay the processing and release of essential relief supplies. In other words, your well-intentioned goods may slow down the distribution of appropriate relief supplies in the affected country.
Donations of out-of-date medicine and medical supplies can do more harm than good to the health and survival of an affected population. In addition countries regulate the import of medicine; the medicines you send might be forbidden from passing through a country's customs, and money will have been wasted in transporting them from Canada.

You have already collected goods that you want to donate. What should you do with them?

Be creative: turn them into cash donations. Many Canadians have found creative ways to turn clothes, toys and other goods into cash donations. Below are just a couple of ideas that may help you:

Organize a community garage sale, auction or raffle and donate all the proceeds to a recognized relief agency. Any left-over goods can be donated to a local charity or shelter.
Use food donations to have a community potluck and have each person make a small cash donation for the food that they eat. The money can then be donated to a relief agency. If there are any non-perishable food items left over, donate them to a local soup kitchen.

You want to volunteer in the affected country. What can you do? Before volunteering your services, you should consider a few things:

The time when search and rescue services are needed is usually short – a period counted in hours, rather than days or weeks. A number of countries have decided to specialize in search and rescue and are closer than Canada to certain disaster-prone regions and can therefore be on the ground quickly and when it counts.
The need for life-saving first aid and other immediate medical assistance is usually short-lived and can be provided by health services in the affected country or from nearby countries.
Many agencies have their own rosters of both local and international volunteers who live near the affected area and who are able to contribute to immediate relief efforts. In a crisis, often, the people who can be most useful in the immediate term are those with relevant field experience and language skills, as they can navigate the situation more pro-actively than volunteers who do not speak the language or are unfamiliar with the area.
Many countries require entry visas that can sometimes take weeks to obtain. In addition specific vaccinations may be required to enter certain countries. If you have skills that can be useful in a humanitarian crisis, you could approach relief organizations in advance to register as a volunteer and to get advice from them on how to prepare yourself to leave for a disaster zone at short notice.

You are interested in helping here in Canada. What can you do?

Get involved at the local level.

Canadian NGOs or the local affiliates of international organizations may need assistance staffing phone lines during fundraising drives or organizing fundraising events in your community. Check their websites regularly.

You want to help beyond the relief phase. What can you do?

Stay involved for the long term.

Many people want to help during the initial emergency, but do not realize how much assistance and money are necessary in the longer term reconstruction - long after the crisis phase of a natural disaster. Organize fundraising events. Encourage friends and family to donate to reputable agencies involved in rebuilding an affected area. Make cash donations over the holidays when most non-governmental organizations have fundraising drives.
Learn more about disaster risk reduction and donate money to development projects that aim to reduce communities' vulnerability to future natural disasters.

Where may you find information about experienced humanitarian organizations?

The Government of Canada works with experienced humanitarian partners and relief agencies to deliver humanitarian assistance in affected areas. For a full list of projects profiles, per country, including executing agencies/partners with which the Government of Canada worked with in the past, please see the International Development Project Browser. For a full list of charitable organizations, please see the Canada Revenue Agency's Web site.
For additional enquiries, please contact our Enquiries Service.

------------------

O CANADA- same thing- The Great British rake-off... what really happens to the billions YOU donate to charity: Fat cat pay, appalling waste and hidden agendas

More than 195,289 charities in UK raising close to £80billion a year
Many have become 'hungry monsters' using money to feed own ambitions
David Craig's new book exposes the truth about Britain’s charity industry
Recent inquiry found there are too many charities to keep track of activities

By David Craig For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 22:01 GMT, 15 November 2014 | Updated: 12:23 GMT, 19 November 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2835947/The-Great-British-rake-really-happens-billions-donate-charity-Fat-cat-pay-appalling-waste-hidden-agendas.html

-----

QUOTE: It is bizarre because the Prime Minister talks about foreign aid as if it’s all about famine relief and saving children’s lives. But he and his Cabinet are intelligent, worldly people and they know that the real world of aid rarely resembles the one celebrated in DFID pamphlets and Oxfam ads. They know that most aid is ‘development aid’ intended not to help in emergencies, but to foster prosperity.

They also know that this development aid is at best useless and at worst counterproductive. A quarter of Britain’s foreign aid goes as ‘budget support’ into the treasuries of some of the world’s least competent, honest or responsible governments. Even more goes to multilateral institutions, like the World Bank or the EU aid body that Clare Short described as ‘an outrage’, ‘a disgrace’ and ‘the worst development agency in the world’.

The great aid mystery

Our rulers must know that development aid doesn’t work. So why do they throw money at it?

Jonathan Foreman 5 January 2013

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8808521/the-great-aid-mystery/

--------

THE GREAT FOREIGN AID DEBATE...

Chapter Five: The Foreign Aid Debate

Thirty years ago, the world could be thought of as divided into two separate groups; the "rich world", made up of Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia which had just one fifth of the world's population but were holding onto 82% of the wealth, and the "poor world", made up of everyone else. But with the rise of the Asian economy, some of Earth's previously poor places -such as China (whose city Shanghai is pictured left), India, Brazil, and much of South East Asia- are rapidly catching up, gaining more and more wealth as their economies continue to grow at unprecedented rates.

Yet while this miracle continues pulling enormous amounts of people out of poverty, a large portion of Earth's population remains stuck in the Poverty Trap, growing only very gradually (and in some places even getting poorer). Their heavy disease burden, chronic civil conflict, overpopulation, lack of infrastructure and bad governance prevent them from getting the boost in wealth needed to move to the second stage of development, and so they continue dying in enormous numbers from preventable disease and severe malnutrition. If no serious action is taken to help these impoverished societies, then by 2050 the world can be thought of as divided into two different groups. On one side will be Earth's wealthy nations, including those in Europe, North America, Asia and much of South America, who represent four fifths of Earth's population and live very comfortable lives. On the other side of the divide will be the "Bottom Billion" countries, located mostly in Africa and some parts of Central America, who have barely gotten any wealthier since the turn of the century.

Are there any things which we can do to help these poorest billion people escape from their poverty traps? I believe that there is; a combination of foreign policy reforms from rich world nations can indeed play an integral role in helping Earth's extremely poor societies gain the boost in wealth needed to enter the second stage of development. I'll be exploring these reforms in the next four chapters.

International Aid as a Cure for Poverty

In 2002, more than fifty Heads of State and over two hundred Ministers of Finance met in Monterrey, Mexico to participate in the United Nations International Conference for Financing and Development. The purpose of the gathering was as follows:

"We the heads of State and Government, gathered in Monterrey, Mexico, on 21 and 22 March 2002, have resolved to address the challenges of financing for development around the world, particularly in developing (impoverished) countries. Our goal is to eradicate poverty, achieve sustained economic growth and promote sustainable development as we advance to a fully inclusive and equitable global economic system."
-Monterrey Consensus, March 2002

One of the key recommendations of the Consensus was that the rich world nations (including Western and Northern Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia and Japan) pledge to donate 0.7% of their annual Gross National Product (70 cents out of every hundred dollars) to extremely poor countries as international aid. The Consensus stated:

"Official development assistance (ODA) plays an essential role as a complement to other sources of financing for development, especially in those countries with the least capacity to attract private direct investment...We recognize that a substantial increase in ODA and other resources will be required if developing countries are to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration. In that context, we urge developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) as ODA to developing countries."
-Monterrey Concensus, March 2002

This was not the first time that a major international panel has recommended the rich world donate 0.7% of its GNP to extremely poor nations; the history of the 0.7% pledge can be traced back to the 1969 when Canadian Prime Minister Lester B Pearson formed the Commission on International Development, which made the recommendation that rich world nations donate 0.7% of their GNP as international aid. In 1970, the Canadian Parliament committed itself to donating this money, asserting that it is our moral duty to promote health and wellness abroad.

As of 2009, the Canadian government has still not achieved this goal. It currently donates only 0.34% of its GNP as international aid (roughly half of what it pledged to donate four decades ago). Canada is not alone; among the 22 rich world countries, only 5 have succeeded in donating this percentage of their GNP (Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and Sweden). But while some call on the government to fulfill its 40 year old promise to increase aid, many wish to see funding for aid dramatically cut. They argue that too much aid money is wasted or embezzled by corrupt foreign governments, and what extremely impoverished nations really need to escape from extreme poverty is a set of market reforms which champion the private sector.

So who is correct? Can aid play an essential role in helping eradicate extreme poverty as the Monterrey Consensus proclaims, or is it simply wasted by corrupt foreign governance? In this chapter we'll examine the Foreign Aid Debate between today's leading economists, and attempt to determine how international aid affects economic development in today's extremely poor societies.

How Foreign Aid Can Help Earth's Poorest Citizens

In 2005, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs released a book entitled "The End of Poverty", in which he argued that the world could eradicate extreme poverty in twenty years time if international aid to Africa was roughly doubled over the course of the next decade. His proposed plan required the richest countries of the world - nations such as Canada, the United States, Japan, Australia and the European Union- to donate 0.7% of their GNP to the extremely impoverished nations of Africa, South America, Asia and the Caribbean. The book subsequently became the rallying cry for the "Foreign Aid Movement" promoting more foreign aid to Africa, becoming a New York Times best-seller and sparking a nationwide political debate.

The book makes strong arguments; as we have explored in the previous chapters, Ladder Theory of Economic Development suggests that countries need a sudden boost of wealth to escape from poverty; private citizens and the nation's government can then invest the new wealth in human health, education, infrastructure and technology to increase worker productivity and make the country more attractive to foreign aid, thus creating additional wealth. The country thereby enters a "Cycle of Prosperity" in which wealth is generated and invested in the economy, creating a second wave of wealth which is once more invested in the economy, etc. The cycle continues until the poor country becomes rich; this has already occurred in South Korea and Taiwan and is currently happening in China and India, causing these countries to become rapidly wealthier.

However, as we have witnessed in Chapter Three, extremely impoverished countries (such as those in Africa) often never get that initial boost in wealth because they are heavily burdened by several "Poverty Traps", including prevalent disease, civil conflict, overpopulation, lack of infrastructure, and terrible governance; these countries never achieve a boom in agricultural productivity or foreign investment (or they get the boom from natural resources, which are subsequently used to fund civil conflict), and therefore never enter the "Cycle of Prosperity". Sachs' argument is relatively simple; let's just give extremely impoverished nations the sudden increase in wealth through foreign aid.

Sachs lays out several investments to be made in Africa's economy which would allow it to enter the cycle of prosperity: for example, the donors of aid in the rich world could give African citizens fertilizers, tools for small-scale irrigation, and bio-engineered high-yielding seeds resistant to drought and pathogens (similar to those developed by the Rockefeller Administration) to give African farmers a boost in agricultural productivity. Rich world countries could give them free bed nets to prevent mosquito bites causing Malaria, treatments for HIV/AIDS, vaccines to cure tuberculosis and other diseases, and new wells and rainwater-harvesting technology to give Africans sanitary drinking water; all of these investments could help promote health in Africa, thus raising worker productivity and saving millions of lives. The rich world could donate money to build and fund primary schools throughout Africa, raising literacy rates, teaching students more efficient ways of irrigating their farms to save on water, and teaching students computer technology skills (enabling African children to get future jobs in the digital information services technology sector just like the students of India's IIT universities). Money could be used to invest in basic infrastructure including paved roads, airports and seaports, electricity for rural homes (through the use of an electricity generator), broadband cables to promote internet access, and silos to store grains so that they can be sold gradually instead of all at once (thereby allowing the farmers to sell the grain for a higher price).

Sachs argues that by giving African nations these critical tools to help rapidly increase worker productivity and attract foreign investment, the countries in sub-Saharan Africa could enter the Cycle of Prosperity and thereby grow into self-sufficient wealthy regions, just as South Korea and Taiwan had done in the 1960s. To prove that international aid can successfully trigger entrance into the Cycle of Prosperity, Sachs founded the Millennium Village Project, an initiative designed to make small scale investments in human health, education and infrastructure in small villages throughout Africa; after receiving enough aid money to make the critical investments, the African villages achieved dramatic reductions in child mortality rates, greater school enrollment and a large boost in crop productivity. Donald Ndahiro recently described the effects this aid had on one small village in Rwanda in a 2009 article to the Huffington Post:

"Farmers across the board are growing 60% more food with some experiencing 2 and 3-fold increases. This means there's more to eat, sell and save. The community now stores vital grains annually in a seed bank rather than relying on hand-outs or humanitarian relief. There is a fully-functioning health center run by Rwandans which delivers more than 85% of the community's babies and provides primary health care. We're proud that it is considered one of the best in the district. School enrollment has gone through the roof with more than 95% of children of age in attendance. Dozens of new cooperatives have taken off and are generating employment and new products. The community leaders frequently comment that weekly funerals of children which were once commonplace just two years ago, have since ceased altogether. In short, the project, which through and through is community-led, has achieved its goal of sustainably reducing poverty in the community, and on that foundation of stability, the community has begun real prosperity-creation projects." (emphasis added)
-Donald Ndahiro, Team Leader, Millennium Villages Project, Rwanda

These small-scale projects have successfully demonstrated that when given the means to invest in health, education and infrastructure, extremely poor communities can become self-sufficient; able to pull themselves out of the Poverty Trap and begin sustainable economic growth.

Sachs believes that these investments can be scaled up to include all of Africa for the price of 0.7% of rich country GNP (roughly seventy cents out of every hundred dollars); this is what the rich nations of Europe and North America had pledged to donate to impoverished countries in 2002 during a world summit in Monterrey. Such money would be given to the Millennium Challenge Account, directed at trying to improve life quality in cooperative impoverished nations. Unfortunately, rich world nations have yet to fulfill this promise; if they did donate this money, Sachs argues that the vast majority of extreme poverty could be eradicated in a very short period of time.

Problems Associated with Foreign Aid

One year after the release of The End of Poverty, New York University economist William Easterly released a book entitled White Man's Burden which criticized Jeffrey Sachs' promotion of more aid to Africa. Easterly contended that "Sachs' anti-poverty prescriptions rest heavily on the kindness of some pretty dysfunctional regimes", arguing that large amounts of international aid are generally wasted or embezzled by corrupt governments. For example, he points to "studies in Guinea, Cameroon, Uganda and Tanzania, which estimated that 30 to 70 percent of government drugs disappeared into the black market rather than reaching the patients". Further, he also cited studies which contend that aid tends to have little effect on promoting economic growth even in countries with good governance.

This may be because foreign aid tends to promote a phenomenon nicknamed "Dutch Disease". According to a report by Raghuram Rajan of the International Monetary Fund, when large amounts of foreign aid are sent overseas, the receiving (impoverished) country's currency tends to rise in value; this rise in the value of currency makes it more expensive for foreigners to purchase exports coming out of the poor country, and thus foreign investment in the impoverished nation is discouraged. In this way, foreign aid undermines (not promotes) foreign investment.

Easterly also repeatedly mentions that more than $2.3 trillion has already been given to the developing world over the last 50 years; if aid was truly a successful means of promoting development, then Easterly argues that targeted impoverished nations should have already eradicated extreme poverty by now. Furthermore, he points out that much aid is wasted on projects whose primary purpose is to glorify the aid organization instead of helping the impoverished citizens; additional aid is wasted on propping up dictators supportive of rich world interests or overthrowing communist regimes.

Other authors have backed up Easterly's position; in 2006, another book written by World Bank economist Robert Calderasi entitled The Trouble with Africa concludes that international aid should be cut to Africa, saying that "Contrary to conventional recommendations, direct foreign aid to most African countries should be (cut in half), not increased" since corrupt African governments often use the money wastefully.

In 2009, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo reinvigorated the foreign aid debate with the release of her book Dead Aid, in which she calls for the complete cut off of all aid to Africa over the next five years. She alleges that "Limitless development assistance to African governments has fostered dependency, encouraged corruption and ultimately perpetuated poor governance and poverty." Moyo argues that Africa's only problem is extensive government corruption and interference in the private market; what the continent needs is rapid market reforms which promote the private sector.

And yet I remain skeptical of these arguments; for decades, free market economists from the Western world have simply prescribed greater market liberalization, decreases in tariff barriers, and widespread deregulation of the market to combat extreme poverty. Many such economists have pointed to Africa's extensive government interference (high tariffs on imported goods and to strict corporate regulation) to explain why Africa remains unable to attract foreign investment and continues to become poorer. But this argument doesn't seem to make sense; consider the world map to the left, comparing several nations' so-called "Index of Economic Freedom" measuring the extent of a country's government intervention in the private marketplace (for example, a country with high taxes and strict business regulation by the government would be not be considered "free" and might be colored orange). As we can see, the economies of some African nations (the long red line down the center of Africa) remain crippled by high government inference, but most of Africa is orange -the same color as China, India and Brazil, which have all in recent decades experienced a huge boom in foreign investment. So why are some over-regulated markets experiencing little to no growth, while other over-regulated markets are experiencing unprecedented growth? Economic freedom certainly plays a role in changing a country's competitiveness; as we saw in the last chapter, India's market reforms (which ended the "License Raj" and rapidly deregulated the market) helped to bring in foreign investment and generate significant amounts of wealth. But too much government interference in Africa is only part of the problem; it is not the only reason why Africa is lagging behind Asia. As mentioned throughout chapters one and three, Africa is plagued by the perfect storm of high disease rates (including AIDS and Malaria), low rainfall which hinders agricultural production and causes repeated famines, and severe ethnic tension which mixes with extreme poverty and hunger to cause repeated bloody civil wars. It is often these things, not inferior governance, which prevent African nations from getting enough wealth to invest in the infrastructure needed to attract foreign investment. Without the prerequisites of proper health, basic education and vital infrastructure, private markets have left enormous areas of the world completely undeveloped; market reform policies are not the only things needed to bring wealth to Africa.

International aid certainly has several setbacks including the creation of Dutch Disease, which discourages exporting. Yet one must remember that extensive aid ($4 billion worth) from the United States did not stop Taiwan from developing into a major exporter during the 1950s; in fact it did just the opposite, as US aid allowed Taiwanese farmers to buy large amounts of fertilizer to increase their crop yields, enabling farmers to produce more rice per hectare of farm than almost any other country in Asia. This enormous surplus of food was Taiwan's original export-base; if US aid had not been in place to support this small capitalist economy, it might not have been so successful in evolving into an export superpower. As noted in Chapter Four, international aid has also played a key role in the economic development of both South Korea, which received a 70% export subsidy from the US government, and India, which achieved a dramatic boost in crop productivity thanks to bio-engineering from the Rockefeller Foundation.

I also contend that Easterly's statistical analysis -which supposedly proves that aid tends to have little effect on promoting economic growth even in countries with good governance- may have been flawed due to lack of variable adjustment between countries. In a book review of The White Man's Burden, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen criticized the studies saying:

"To arrive at his negative view of economic aid, Easterly draws on large-scale cross-sectional statistical analysis, as well as on case studies of particular plans and programs. Such intercountry comparisons have become fashionable as a way of isolating solid connections between causes and effects, but they are seriously compromised by the difficulty of comparing diverse experiences: countries can differ significantly in variables other than those that are brought under cross-sectional scrutiny. Many such studies are also impaired by difficulties in identifying what is causing what. For example, a country's economic distress may induce donors to give it more aid -- which may, in terms of associative statistics, suggest a connection between aid and bad economic performance. But using such a correlation to prove the bad effects of aid turns the causal connection on its head. Easterly tries to avoid such pitfalls, but the statistical associations on which he draws for his comprehensive pessimism about the effects of aid do not offer a definitive causal picture."
-Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics at Harvard University

Easterly also argued that aid is not a successful means of promoting development because enormous amounts of aid -$2.3 trillion worth- have already gone to developing countries without successfully eradicating extreme poverty. But this assertion is undermined by Easterly's second argument; that much aid has been spent on destructive activities such as overthrowing communist regimes instead of trying to help impoverished societies. Had this aid been spent on activities which bettered African welfare instead of furthering rich world interests, then arguably it would have been much more successful at alleviating poverty. Michael Gerson of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations criticized similar statements from Dambisa Moyo (author of Dead Aid) in a recent Op-Ed column in Washington Post: "Moyo is on firm ground in criticizing decades of direct foreign assistance to African governments. Such aid has often propped up corrupt elites, shielded leaders from the consequences of their own incompetence and delayed reforms necessary for the development of working markets. She is correct in emphasizing the decisive role of trade, direct foreign investment and local capital in the development of poor nations -- sources of opportunity that dwarf aid flows in size and importance. I'd go further. Through most of the past several decades, the development of Africa has not even been the purpose of foreign aid. Europeans often provided money to elites in former colonies to assuage guilt. During the Cold War, Americans often used aid to reward loyalty...But Moyo does not take sufficient account of the broad reaction against this kind of direct aid beginning in the 1990s. The United States started taking a much more targeted and strategic approach. The Millennium Challenge Account directed new aid to nations willing to work as responsible partners, dedicated to reform and transparency. Initiatives on AIDS and Malaria required and achieved measurable outcomes and have often worked through civil society instead of giving money directly to African governments...If Moyo's point is that some aid can be bad, then it is noncontroversial. If her point is that all aid is bad, then it is absurd."
-Michael Gerson, Council on Foreign Relations

Finally, although he certainly agrees that much aid has been wasted, Jeffrey Sachs still contends that international aid has been quite successful in bettering the lives of impoverished citizens. In addition to the enormous success of achieving a major increase in crop productivity throughout Asia, Sachs points out several revolutionary successes brought about by international aid, writing:

"Successes include the UNICEF campaigns to expand coverage of immunization, the eradication of smallpox, the control of onchocerciasis in Africa, the campaign to eradicate polio, the scaling up of anti-retroviral medicines, the use of oral rehydration therapy, the global application of DOTS for tuberculosis, and the expansion of family planning and contraceptive coverage."

Sachs also notes that in 1967, the plan to eradicate small pox was widely viewed as impossible and a waste of time due to the challenges of distributing the drug over vast areas. The resolution to finance the project only narrowly passed the vote of the World Health Assembly; just one decade later, the last natural case of smallpox was reported. Now, argues Sachs, "a significant number of other crippling and killing diseases, including African river blindness, schistosomiasis, trauchoma, lymphatic filariasis, hookworm, ascariasis, and trichuriasis, could be brought under control for well under($700 million per year)." Using history as our guiding light, we must use international aid to take action against these diseases, helping extremely poor nations escape from the Poverty Trap.

Summary

In summary, foreign aid certainly has many problems associated with it; much of it is wasted by corrupt government officials in impoverished nations, and aid may contribute to "Dutch Disease" and therefore undermine foreign direct investment. But aid has successfully eradicated many serious illnesses in developing countries, including polio and small pox, and has played a critical role in the takeoff of several successful economies, including South Korea, Taiwan, and India. In addition, small scale experiments with impoverished African villages (under the Millennium Villages Project) have proven that African communities can use foreign aid money to achieve self-sustaining economic growth.

Although market reforms obviously play a crucial role in helping to bring wealth to impoverished nations, vast regions of the world are still extremely poor not due to terrible governance but rather because they are stuck in various Poverty Traps which prevent them from generating enough wealth to enter the Cycle of Prosperity. The private sector is an excellent engine of wealth only when essential prerequisites such as good health, education, civil peace and physical infrastructure are in place; foreign aid is one means of giving impoverished nations those prerequisites.

Foreign aid is therefore not a "Band-Aid Solution" or a form of welfare which is wasted on those unable to take care of themselves; rather, aid is a form of economic stimulus which allows a nation to begin ascent up the Ladder of Development. International aid is one means by which rich nations such as Canada can help Earth's extremely impoverished societies.

Sources

Calderisi, Robert. The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Easterly, William. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.
            New York: Penguin Press HC, 2006.
---- "A Modest Proposal". The Washington Post, March 13, 2005.
---- "The Handouts that Feed Poverty". The Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2006.
Engineers Without Borders. Is Canada Fulfilling the 0.7% Pledge? http://uwaterloo.ewb.ca/point7/canada
Engineers Without Borders. What is the 0.7% Pledge? http://uwaterloo.ewb.ca/point7/what
Gerson, Michael. "Dead Aid, Dead Wrong". The Washington Post, April 3, 2009.
Kristof, Nicholas D. "Aid: Can it Work?" The New York Review of Books. October 5, 2006.
Moyo, Dambisa. Dead Aid: Why Aid Isn’t Working and How there is a Better Way for Africa. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.
Ndahiro, Donald. "Sustainable Results: Addressing Misconceptions about the Millennium Villages Project". Huffington Post. June 23, 2009.
Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities of Our Time. New York: Penguin Group, 2005
---- "How to Help the Poor".The Lancet. April 22, 2006.
---- "How Aid Can Work".The New York Review of Books. December 21, 2006
Sen, Amartya. "The Man Without a Plan". Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006.
               http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61525/amartya-sen/the-man-without-a-plan
United Nations. Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development. March 22, 2002
               http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/monterrey/MonterreyConsensus.pdf
Wallis, William. "Foreign Aid Critic Spreads Theory Far and Fast." Financial Times, May 26, 2009.

http://www.povertyeducation.org/the-foreign-aid-debate.html

----------

Myths About Aid

Myth 1. ‘We already spend a vast amount on foreign aid’
Myth 2. ‘The money we have spent has had little or no effect’
Myth 3. ‘The problem is so large, my giving can make no real difference’
Myth 4. ‘Charity begins at home: we should solve our own problems first’
Myth 5. ‘Aid is useless due to corruption in the governments who receive it’
Myth 6. ‘Aid just makes developing countries dependent on handouts’
Myth 7. ‘Because it leads to overpopulation, aid only increases the problems’
Myth 8. ‘We don't need charity; we need political action’
Summary

Myth 1. ‘We already spend a vast amount on foreign aid’

The full picture:

The amount the developed world spends is tiny compared with its wealth. In 2012, governments of developed countries spent $128 billion on foreign aid, and private aid from citizens added $56 billion. BUT:

The total aid was only 0.4% of the combined national income of those countries, or four dollars out of every thousand.
The total aid was only $152 per person living in developed countries.
There are 5.84 billion people in developing countries, which means that the total aid was only $33 per recipient.

The Iraq War of 2003 cost more than the amount given in foreign aid over the past 50 years!:

People are often under the impression that a lot more is spent on foreign aid than it actually is. US citizens consistently estimate that around 25% of the Federal Budget is spent on aid, and say that they believe that the figure should be around 10%. In fact the US spends less than 1% of the Federal Budget on foreign aid.

Myth 2. ‘The money we have spent has had little or no effect’

The full picture:

Global poverty is a massive problem, and aid certainly hasn’t made it disappear yet. However, as seen above, the amount given in aid is less than often assumed.

Despite this, a lot has been achieved in the developing world:

Smallpox was eradicated worldwide by 1980 following a World Health Organisation initiative launched in 1959. A highly contagious disease, it had been particularly devastating in South Asia, where it killed up to half of those affected and left survivors maimed.
Annual worldwide deaths from malaria were reduced by over 80% between 1930 and 2010, from 3.8 to 0.7 million.
Using oral rehydration therapy, annual worldwide deaths from cholera and other diarrhoeal illnesses were reduced by 65% between 1980 and 2001, from 4.6 to 1.6 million.
Just look at the pages for our recommended charities to see the impact that they are already having, improving health and improving lives.

Despite spending relatively little, we have made great strides forward in terms of health. Just think what we could achieve if we gave more, and we gave to the most effective programs!

Myth 3. ‘The problem is so large, my giving can make no real difference’

The full picture:

In fact, you could make more of a difference than you might think. For example, if the average US citizen gave 10% of his or her income to the Against Malaria Foundation, then each year it could distribute 700 mosquito nets, preventing 190 cases of malaria and 2.2 deaths. This would amount to saving 90 lives over the course of his or her life – hardly “no real difference”!

You may not be able to end poverty on your own, but all great movements are made up of individual actions. If we all donated a percentage of our income to the most effective charities, together we could actually end extreme poverty in this lifetime.

Myth 4. ‘Charity begins at home: we should solve our own problems first’

The full picture:

There are also many people in very difficult circumstances in developed countries, who are certainly no less deserving than the developing world. But the question is: what can be achieved with your donation?

In the developed world, we already spend enough money on health, sanitation and education to ensure that, for example, easily preventable or treatable diseases are prevented and treated. Overwhelmingly, the problems we are left with are ones which would be relatively expensive to solve. For that reason, the UK’s National Health Service considers it cost-effective to spend up to £20,000 (over $30,000) for a single year of healthy life added.

By contrast, because of their poverty many developing countries are still plagued by diseases which would cost the developed world comparatively tiny sums to control. For example Against Malaria Foundation distributes mosquito nets at a cost of only $3,340 per life saved. The NHS would spend this amount to add two months of healthy life to a patient.

For a direct comparison, suppose we want to help people suffering from blindness:

In a developed country this would usually involve paying to train a guide dog and its new owner, which costs around $40,000.
In the developing world there are millions of people suffering from trachoma-induced blindness which could be completely cured by a safe eye operation, costing only about $20.
For the same amount of money as training one guide dog, we could instead completely cure over 2,000 people of blindness.

Myth 5. ‘Aid is useless due to corruption in the governments who receive it’

The full picture:

No-one denies that corruption in developing countries can sometimes lead to aid money or resources going missing. But the answer is not giving less, but giving smarter.

One way of reducing the danger of corruption is to donate to programs which do not deal in valuable goods which officials could divert. Another is to give to charities with strict distribution controls and robust impact assessments, ensuring that their work is actually making a difference rather than simply lining a few pockets. For example Against Malaria Foundation is particularly careful to avoid and discourage corruption while carrying out its distributions.

Myth 6. ‘Aid just makes developing countries dependent on handouts’

The full picture:

It is true that, for example, donating large quantities of food can make it unprofitable to farm locally. However, many types of intervention simply do not cause this sort of problem and have overwhelmingly positive effects. For example:

Programs which teach skills can help poor people to do things like grow their own food or learn the skills necessary to earn a decent living. As the saying goes, “teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life”.
The distribution of drugs to fight neglected tropical diseases not only improves health, but leads to greater levels of education and wealth. Schistosomiasis Control Initiative and Deworm the World set up these programmes to be taken over by national health departments in a sustainable way, leading to decreased dependence on aid over time.
Project Healthy Children helps governments to fortify staple foods with micronutrients. Once the standards and processes are set up, there is no need for any continued ‘handouts’ .

This is an issue which we take into account in assessing charities, to ensure that the ones we recommend improve lives in a sustainable and non-exploitative way.

Myth 7. ‘Because it leads to overpopulation, aid only increases the problems’

The full picture:

Why do the countries in the developed world have much lower birth rates than the developing world? There are a number of reasons:

Lower infant death rates mean families don’t need to have as many children in order to guarantee that some will survive.
At the same time improvements in quality of life make it less necessary to have many children working to support their families.
Greater access to contraception gives families more control over fertility.

Therefore by reducing infant death rates, improving quality of life and increasing access to contraception, aid can help to bring this kind of ‘demographic transition’ in the developed world as well, reducing the birth rate while tackling extreme poverty at the same time.

There are also many ways in which aid can greatly improve the quality of people’s lives in poverty stricken areas without increasing the birth rate. For example, it can cure people of blindness or neglected tropical diseases, which cause significant hardship but have only a small effect on mortality.

Even better, regular treatments through deworming campaigns have been shown to decrease school absenteeism and increase adulthood earnings, which are the sorts of improvements which tend to lead to decreasing fertility rates.

Myth 8. ‘We don't need charity; we need political action’

The full picture:

There are many ways in which political action could lead to great improvements for those living in developing countries, from changing the aid policies of powerful countries such as the United States to reforming the way in which world trade is conducted.

However lasting economic change is notoriously difficult to bring about, not least because there are vested interests prepared to spend a lot of money to avoid change. Where money is spent on both sides of a political battle, the overall good done is usually nil.

There is more hope for organisations which push for political change in the developing world. Project Healthy Children places advisors within recipient governments to offer encouragement and technical assistance to push forward mandatory standards for food fortification with micronutrients. Similarly Deworm the World provides the expertise to enable governments to put into place regular school-based deworming programmes.

Summary

Many of the reasons most people appeal to for not supporting foreign aid are in fact myths. The facts are quite different:

We are spending less on aid than we think, and less than we think we should.
Aid has had positive effects on global health and could achieve more if we gave more and more effectively.
We can each make a great difference individually, and together we can end extreme poverty in this lifetime.
We can achieve more by donating abroad than to causes in developed countries.
Corruption only makes it more important to give to the best charities.
We can help people in developing countries to help themselves, rather than depend on assistance.
The best health interventions are likely to reduce the problem of overpopulation rather than making it worse.
Supporting political action is a viable alternative to direct aid, although a more uncertain one.

The best way to avoid the potential pitfalls of aid is to carefully consider which charity to give to. Find out which charities we believe can use your donation the most effectively on our Top Charities page.

https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/myths-about-aid

-----------------

Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada

By Martin Turcotte

[Highlights][Full article in PDF]

Skip to text

Text begins

Every day, Canadians contribute both their money and time to improve the well-being of their communities. Their financial donations help a variety of causes, such as ensuring shelters, social services organizations and food banks are able to deliver their services, universities and hospitals are able to advance medical research, and political, religious and environmental groups can have their voices heard. Volunteering also has a direct impact on the lives of Canadians, whether it is teaching and supporting children, providing health care, or supporting and giving companionship.
The benefits of volunteering and giving may be even broader for society. Previous research has suggested that volunteerism, by bringing together persons from all walks of life to work on a common project or objective, contributes to “social cohesion” or “social capital” – for example, by increasing social trust, reciprocity and sense of belonging in communities (Wu 2011). At the same time, social capital has been shown to foster more giving and more volunteering in society (Brooks 2005; Brown and Ferris 2007; Wang and Graddy 2008).
Volunteering and giving can also benefit volunteers and donors themselves. For example, volunteers can acquire skills and knowledge, such as management skills, communication or teaching skills, or knowledge of current social or political issues. Some research has even shown that volunteering and giving can contribute to the improved well-being and health of volunteers and donors (Jenkinson, et al., 2013; Dunn, et al., 2008).
This report uses data from the 2013 General Social Survey (GSS) on Giving, Volunteering and Participating to profile volunteering and giving in Canada. The first section presents information about individuals who volunteered in 2013, their characteristics and the number of hours they provided. Changes in both volunteer rates and hours, as well as in the age profile of volunteers, are also discussed. The second section focuses on charitable giving, including changes in donation rates and in the amounts given by Canadians of all ages.

Top of Page

Volunteering

More than 4 in 10 Canadians volunteered in 2013

In 2013, 12.7 million Canadians or 44% of people, aged 15 years and older, participated in some form of volunteer work (Table 1). This represents a decrease from a high of 47% in 2010, the last time the survey was conducted. It also follows a slight increase recorded between 2004 and 2010.

Table 1
Volunteer rate and volunteer hours, population aged 15 and over Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 1 Volunteer rate and volunteer hours 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004 (appearing as column headers).
Volunteer rate
	2013	2010	2007	2004
Total population (thousands)	29,188	28,206^Note †	27,000^Note †	26,021^Note †
Number of volunteers (thousands)	12,716	13,249^Note †	12,444	11,773^Note †
Volunteer rate (percentage)	44	47^Note †	46^Note †	45^Note †
Volunteer hours
Total annual volunteer hours (millions)	1,957	2,063	2,062	1,978
Average annual volunteer hours (hours)	154	156	166	168^Note †
Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

The total number of volunteers was lower in 2013 than in 2010 (12.7 and 13.2 million, respectively). This translates into a 4.0% decline in the total number of Canadian volunteers, despite the fact that the population aged 15 years and older increased by about one million during the same period (+3.5 %).
Along with participation in volunteer activities, information was collected on the total number of volunteer hours. In 2013, volunteers devoted about 1.96 billion hours to their volunteer activities, a volume of work that is equivalent to about 1 million full-time jobs.
Volunteers contributed 154 hours on average in 2013, unchanged from 2010, but lower than the 168 hours recorded in 2004.

Younger people most likely to volunteer

Many factors are associated with volunteering, including early life and youth experiences, type and size of a person’s social network, marital status, socio-economic characteristics and even personality type. In this initial analysis of the GSS on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, variations by sex, age and highest level of education are examined.
In 2013, women were slightly more likely to volunteer than men (45% versus 42%) (Table 2). This differs from 2010 and 2007, where women and men did not vary in their tendency to volunteer.

Table 2
Volunteer rate, by sex and age Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 2 Volunteer rate Volunteer rate, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004, calculated using percentage units of measure (appearing as column headers).
	2013	2010	2007	2004
	Volunteer rate
	percentage
Total	44	47^Note †	46^Note †	45^Note †
Men (ref.)	42	46^Note †	45^Note †	44
Women	45^Note *	48^Note †	47^Note †	47^Note *^Note †
Age
15 to 19	66^Note *	66^Note *	65^Note *	65^Note *
20 to 24	42	48^Note *	47^Note *	43^Note *
25 to 34	42^Note *	46^Note *	40^Note *	42^Note *
35 to 44 (ref.)	48	54^Note †	52^Note †	51
45 to 54	45	45^Note *	48^Note *	47^Note *
55 to 64	41^Note *	41^Note *	40^Note *	42^Note *
65 to 74	38^Note *	40^Note *	40^Note *	39^Note *
75 and over	27^Note *	31^Note *	29^Note *	23^Note *^Note †
Note * significantly different from reference category (ref.) at p < 0.05 Return to note * referrer Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

A much stronger correlation existed between age and volunteerism. In 2013, older seniors aged 75 and over were the least likely to volunteer (27%), followed by those aged 65 to 74 (38%). Younger people aged 15 to 19 were, by far, the most likely to do some volunteer work, as two thirds of them did so (66%, unchanged from 2010).
This proportion may, however, be influenced by “mandatory” volunteering. Many students are required to perform community service to fulfill the course requirements needed to graduate from high school. One in five volunteers aged 15 to 19 reported that they were required to volunteer (20%). This compares to 7% of people aged 20 years and over.
After adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 19, middle-aged adults, who are often parents of school-aged children, were the most likely to do volunteer work. In particular, 48% of people aged 35 to 44 volunteered in 2013, higher than the average of 44%.^Note 1

Decline in the volunteer rate most pronounced among persons aged 35 to 44

In terms of trends over time, the volunteer rate did not change in the same way among all age groups. Among people aged 35 to 44, the share of people who volunteered decreased by 6 percentage points from 2010 to 2013 (from 54% to 48%).
The story was different for older Canadians, as the proportion who volunteered was virtually unchanged between 2010 and 2013. For example, 41% of people aged 55 to 64 volunteered their time in 2013, the same proportion as in 2010.

Older volunteers less likely to volunteer but contributed the most hours

As in the previous years, younger seniors who volunteered contributed the highest average annual hours in 2013. In particular, volunteers aged 65 to 74 spent about 231 hours volunteering, almost double the number of hours (122 hours) recorded for those aged 35 to 44 (Table 3).

Table 3
Average annual volunteer hours, by sex and age Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 3 Average annual volunteer hours Average annual volunteer hours, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004, calculated using hours units of measure (appearing as column headers).
	2013	2010	2007	2004
	Average annual volunteer hours
	hours
Total	154	156	166	168^Note †
Men (ref.)	164	153	168	168
Women	145	158	164^Note †	168^Note †
Age
15 to 19	110	115	116^Note *	127^Note *
20 to 24	147	159^{Note E: Use with caution}	182	161
25 to 34	126	109	133	137
35 to 44 (ref.)	122	136	158^Note †	152^Note †
45 to 54	150^Note *	168^Note *	169	176^Note *^Note †
55 to 64	203^Note *	201^Note *	206^Note *	202^Note *
65 to 74	231^Note *	236^Note *	216^Note *	250^Note *
75 and over	196^Note *	198^Note *	222^Note *	234^Note *
^E use with caution Note * significantly different from reference category (ref.) at p < 0.05 Return to note * referrer Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

Overall, volunteers aged 55 and over contributed 39% of the 1.96 billion hours volunteered by Canadians aged 15 and over in 2013. This proportion was higher than their share of the total population of volunteers (28%) (Chart 1).
Chart 1 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart 1 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart 1

Changing profile of the volunteer population: older and more educated

Just like the general population, the population of volunteers is aging (Chart 2). In 2013, 28% of all Canadian volunteers were aged 55 and older, compared to 23% in 2004. In contrast, the share of volunteers aged 35 to 44 decreased from 22% in 2004 to 18% in 2013.
Chart 2 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart 2 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart 2
The proportion of volunteers aged 55 and over increased during this period, and their contribution to the total number of hours volunteered increased as well. Precisely, the percentage of all volunteer hours contributed by people aged 55 and over rose by 8 percentage points between 2004 and 2013. In contrast, the percentage of all volunteer hours contributed by people aged 35 to 54 decreased by 8 percentage points.
These population aging trends were also evident in the age profile of “top volunteers”, defined here as the 25% of volunteers who contributed the most hours over the previous year^Note 2. In 2013, older Canadians aged 55 and over represented 38% of these top volunteers, up from 31% in 2004 (Table 4). In summary, older Canadians’ overrepresentation in the share of volunteers and in the number of volunteer hours is rising.

Table 4
Distribution of top volunteers, by sex and age Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 4 Distribution of top volunteers Distribution of top volunteers, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004 (appearing as column headers).
	2013	2010	2007	2004
	Distribution of top volunteers^Note 1
	percentage
Total	100	100	100	100
Men	51	48	49	48
Women	49	52	51	52
Age
15 to 34	28	29	27	29
35 to 54	34	37	41^Note †	40^Note †
55 and over	38	34	32^Note †	31^Note †
Note 1. Top volunteers are defined as the 25% of volunteers who contributed the most hours. Return to note 1 referrer Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

This changing age profile of volunteers could have several implications for the voluntary sector and for organizations in need of volunteers. This is because, among other things, older volunteers are more likely to do certain types of activities. For example, in 2013, 42% sat on a committee or board, compared to 34% of volunteers aged 35 to 54 and 26% of volunteers aged 15 to 34.
Older volunteers are also more likely to provide health care or support, such as companionship, through an organization: 20% of volunteers aged 55 and over provided that type of care, compared to 15% of volunteers aged 35 to 54. On the other hand, older volunteers are less likely to teach, educate or mentor, or to coach, referee or officiate.

Volunteers are becoming more and more educated

Also mirroring the overall population, volunteers are becoming more and more educated. From 2004 to 2013, the percentage of volunteers aged 25 to 64 with a university degree rose by 4 percentage points to 39% (Chart 3).
Chart 3 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart 3 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart 3
A more educated population and more volunteers with post-secondary credentials may also affect the pool of skills available for non-profit organizations. For example among people aged 25 to 64, university graduate volunteers were more likely to teach, educate and mentor (36%) than those with lower levels of educational attainment (27% of those who completed a college or trade certificate or diploma, and 21% of volunteers with a high school degree). They were also more likely to sit as members of a committee or board (41%, compared to 30% of those without a university degree).
Conversely, volunteers aged 25 to 64 with a university degree were less likely to perform volunteer work associated with the maintenance, repair or building of facilities or grounds (13%, compared to 19 % of those who did not complete a university degree).

Top of Page

Giving to charitable or non-profit organizations

Proportionally fewer Canadians were donors but they donated more

For many people, especially those with busy lives, giving money to charitable or non-profit organizations may be less demanding and less time-consuming than volunteering their time. Giving money to a cause or to an organization may also be the preferred option when volunteering represents a challenge, such as with older seniors whose health condition may be more fragile.
For these reasons and many others, the donor rate is typically substantially higher than the volunteer rate. Indeed in 2013, the vast majority of Canadians (82%) made financial donations to a charitable or non-profit organization.
While the proportion of people aged 15 and over who made a financial donation was down by two percentage points from 2010, the trend in the donation amount followed an opposite direction. Between 2010 and 2013, the total amount donated by Canadians to charitable or non-profit organizations increased by 14% to $12.8 billion (all figures in this section are presented in 2013 dollars) (Table 5).

Table 5
Donors and amount of donations, population aged 15 and over Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 5 Donors and amount of donations 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004 (appearing as column headers).
Donor rate
	2013	2010	2007	2004
Total population (thousands)	29,188	28,206^Note †	27,000^Note †	26,021^Note †
Total number of donors (thousands)	24,051	23,736	22,793^Note †	22,140^Note †
Donor rate (percentage)	82	84^Note †	84^Note †	85^Note †
Amount of donations
Total amount (thousand of dollars)	12,763,566	11,158,712^Note †	10,965,873^Note †	10,392,187^Note †
Average annual amount per donors	531	470^Note †	481	469^Note †
Amount of donations by type of organization
Total amount donated to religious organizations (thousands of dollars)	5,227,931	4,481,629^Note †	5,050,201	4,637,337
Total amount donated to non-religious organizations (thousands of dollars)	7,535,634	6,677,084^Note †	5,915,672^Note †	5,754,850^Note †
Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Note: All amounts expressed in 2013 dollars. Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

This growth in the total amount of financial donations was also reflected in the average amounts donated by individual donors. In 2013, the average annual amount per donor was $531, up $61 from 2010.

Donors aged 55 and over gave the most

Mirroring the typical volunteer and the typical Canadian, the average donor is getting older (Chart 4). In 2013, 35% of all donors were aged 55 and over, up from 29% in 2004.
Chart 4 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart 4 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart 4
Older Canadians were more likely to donate to religious organizations, health organizations and hospitals than younger Canadians. On the other hand, they were proportionally less likely to contribute to educational organizations. What may distinguish them the most from other Canadians, however, is the average amount of money they gave.
In 2013, donors aged 75 and over gave an average of $726 to non-profit or charitable organizations, about $300 more than donors aged 35 to 44 (Table 6).

Table 6
Average annual donations, by sex and age Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 6 Average annual donations Average annual donation, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004, calculated using dollars units of measure (appearing as column headers).
	2013	2010	2007	2004
	Average annual donation
	dollars
Total	531	470^Note †	481	469^Note †
Men (ref.)	580	491^Note †	499^Note †	504
Women	484^Note *	451	465	438^Note *
Age
15 to 19	156^Note *^{Note E: Use with caution}	136^Note *	125^Note *	102^Note *
20 to 24	245^Note *^{Note E: Use with caution}	169^Note *^{Note E: Use with caution}	193^Note *	208^Note *
25 to 34	364	322^Note *	351^Note *	364^Note *
35 to 44 (ref.)	427	454	488	434
45 to 54	664^Note *	502^Note †	601^Note *	580^Note *
55 to 64	681^Note *	660^Note *	548^Note †	586^Note *
65 to 74	715^Note *	625^Note *	634^Note *	616^Note *^Note †
75 and over	726^Note *	765^Note *	736^Note *	758^Note *
^E use with caution Note * significantly different from reference category (ref.) at p < 0.05 Return to note * referrer Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

In 2013, older Canadians aged 55 and older accounted for 34% of the total population aged 15 and over and 35% of donors. However, they contributed 47% of all donations made during the year (Chart 5). In addition, the proportion of the total amount of charitable donations contributed by older Canadians has increased since 2004, from 39% to 47% in 2013.
Chart 5 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart 5 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart 5

Four-fifths of financial donations made by 25% of donors

All donors are important to charitable and non-profit organizations. However, the “top donors,” defined as the 25% of donors who contributed the most money, contribute to about four fifths of the total annual amount of donations in a given year. The role of these top donors was even more pronounced in the most recent period. In 2013, they contributed 84% of all donations, up from 82% in 2004.
The relative importance of the 10% of donors who give the highest dollar amounts increased even more. In fact, most of the increase in total donations to charitable and non-profit organization was due to the increased contribution of the 10% of donors who gave the most.
In 2013, these donors gave a total of $8.4 billion, which corresponded to 66% of all donations made during that year. In comparison, in 2010, the 10% of donors who gave the most contributed $7 billion (63% of total donations) (Chart 6).
Chart 6 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart 6 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart 6
Together, all other donors contributed about $4.4 billion in 2013, an amount that was virtually unchanged from previous years.

Slightly more than 40% of all financial donations went to religious organizations

Information was collected on the type of organizations benefiting from charitable donations. In 2013, donations made to religious organizations represented $5.2 billion, or 41% of all dollars given in that year^Note 3. This proportion was similar to the one recorded in 2010, but lower than in 2007 (46%) and in 2004 (45%).
Among non-religious organizations, organizations in the health sector and social services organizations ranked second and third in terms of amount collected from individual donors. More precisely, health organizations received $1.7 billion (13% of all donations) and those in social services $1.6 billion (12% of all donations).

Women contributed 53% of all donations to religious organizations

Previous research has found that Canadians who give the most to religious organizations include those who attend a religious service weekly, those who volunteer more hours, immigrants and older seniors (Turcotte, 2012; Thomas, 2012). The same general conclusions applied in 2013.
For example, Canadians who attended a religious service weekly gave on average $899 to religious organizations, compared to $67 for those who did not attend weekly.
In 2013, women and men gave about the same average annual amount to religious organizations (about $220 a year). However, since women were more likely to make a donation, they contributed 53% of the total donations made to religious organizations (Table 7).

Table 7
Distribution of total annual donations to religious and non-religious organizations, by sex and age Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 7 Distribution of total annual donations to religious and non-religious organizations Donations to religious organizations and Donations to non-religious organizations (appearing as column headers).
	thousands of dollars
	Donations to religious organizations	Donations to non-religious organizations
Total	5,227,931	7,535,634
	percentage distribution
Total	100	100
Men	47	56
Women	53	44
Age
15 to 34	17	16
34 to 54	33	40
55 and over	50	44
Top donors^Note 1
No	7	21
Yes	93	79
Note 1 Top donors are defined as the 25% of donors who contributed the most money, that is donors who gave $399 or more in 2013. Return to note 1 referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

In contrast, men gave more than women to non-religious organizations ($366 compared to $264 for women). Overall, 56% of all donations to non-religious organizations were made by men.
Older Canadians contribute more to charitable and non-profit organizations than their percentage of the population. That is even more the case for giving to religious organizations. In 2013, 50% of all donations made to religious organizations were made by persons aged 55 and over. In comparison, Canadians aged 55 and older contributed 44% of all donations to non-religious organizations.
Finally, top donors, or the 25% of donors who gave the most, were especially important for religious organizations. In 2013, they contributed 93% of all donations to religious organizations. In comparison, they contributed 79% of all donations to non-religious organizations.

Top of Page

Volunteering and giving in the provinces

Start of text box

The rate of volunteering and donating varies across Canada. In 2013, the volunteer rate was highest in Saskatchewan (56%) and Manitoba (52%). Both were significantly higher than the national average of 44%. In contrast, the rate of volunteering was lowest in Québec, where about one-third (32%) of the population aged 15 and over volunteered for an organization. Quebec was also the only province with an average number of volunteer hours below the national average (Table A.1).

Table A.1
Volunteer rate and average annual volunteer hours, by province Table summary
This table displays the results of Table A.1 Volunteer rate and average annual volunteer hours Volunteer rate, Average annual volunteer hours, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004 (appearing as column headers).
	2013	2010	2007	2004	2013	2010	2007	2004
	Volunteer rate				Average annual volunteer hours
	percentage				hours
Canada (ref.)	44	47^Note †	46^Note †	45^Note †	154	156	166	168^Note †
Newfoundland and Labrador	46	52^Note *^Note †	46	42^Note *	151	155	176	188
Prince Edward Island	50^Note *	56^Note *	56^Note *	47	179	157	147	163
Nova Scotia	51^Note *	54^Note *	55^Note *^Note †	48^Note *	181	207^Note *	183	195^Note *
New Brunswick	41	49^Note †	48^Note †	44	180	154	175	185
Quebec	32^Note *	37^Note *^Note †	37^Note *^Note †	34^Note *	123^Note *	128^Note *	162^Note †	146^Note *^Note †
Ontario	44	48^Note †	47^Note *^Note †	50^Note *^Note †	166	164	164	162
Manitoba	52^Note *	53^Note *	54^Note *	50^Note *	155	141	159	155
Saskatchewan	56^Note *	58^Note *	59^Note *	54^Note *	139	143	147	188^Note †
Alberta	50^Note *	55^Note *	52^Note *	48^Note *	161	140	172	175
British Columbia	49^Note *	50^Note *	47	45^Note †	145	178^Note *^Note †	172^Note †	199^Note *^Note †
Note * significantly different from reference category (ref.) at p < 0.05 Return to note * referrer Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2015001-eng.htm --------------------------- Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

While the volunteer rate grew in almost all provinces between 2004 and 2010, this trend recently reversed in many of them. For 4 of the provinces in 2013, the share of the population aged 15 and over who volunteered was lower compared to 2010.
Precisely, the rate of volunteering fell from 52% to 46% in Newfoundland and Labrador. Similar declines were observed in New Brunswick (49% to 41%), Quebec (37% to 32%) and Ontario (48% to 44%).
West of Ontario, the changes between 2010 and 2013 were either more modest or not statistically significant.

Highest donor rate in Newfoundland and Labrador

The proportion of Canadians making a financial donation in the last year ranged from a high of 87% in Newfoundland and Labrador to a low of 78% in British Columbia. The amount of donations also differed throughout the country, with donors in Alberta ($863), British Columbia ($704) and Manitoba ($699) reporting higher than average financial donations in 2013. Conversely, average donations were lowest in Quebec ($264) and New Brunswick ($345) (Table A.2).

Table A.2
Donor rate and average annual donations, by province Table summary
This table displays the results of Table A.2 Donor rate and average annual donations Donor rate, Average annual donation, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2004 (appearing as column headers).
	2013	2010	2007	2004	2013	2010	2007	2004
	Donor rate				Average annual donation
	percentage				amount
Canada (ref.)	82	84^Note †	84^Note †	85^Note †	531	470^Note †	481	469^Note †
Newfoundland and Labrador	87^Note *	92^Note *^Note †	91^Note *	93^Note *^Note †	350^Note *	349^Note *	330^Note *	349^Note *
Prince Edward Island	84	91^Note *^Note †	89^Note *^Note †	93^Note *^Note †	497	504	494	459
Nova Scotia	84	88^Note *^Note †	87	90^Note *^Note †	396^Note *	389^Note *	452	444
New Brunswick	83	88^Note *^Note †	88^Note *^Note †	88^Note *^Note †	345^Note *	400	409^Note *	412
Quebec	81	85^Note †	84^Note †	83^Note *	264^Note *	219^Note *	241^Note *	207^Note *
Ontario	83	84	86^Note *	90^Note *^Note †	532	554^Note *	551^Note *	573^Note *
Manitoba	84	86	87	84	699^Note *	547	572^Note *	533
Saskatchewan	85	84	84	82^Note *	680^Note *	573^Note *	564	506^Note †
Alberta	85	84	85	79^Note *^Note †	863^Note *	593^Note *^Note †	656^Note *^Note †	586^Note *^Note †
British Columbia	78^Note *	80^Note *	79^Note *	77^Note *	704^Note *	573^Note *	557^Note *	547^Note *^Note †
Note * significantly different from reference category (ref.) at p < 0.05 Return to note * referrer Note † significantly different from 2013 at p < 0.05 Return to note † referrer Sources: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2013, and the Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

Top donors can be defined as the 25% of donors who contributed the most money during the year. The share of top donors also varied regionally, from a low of 12% in Quebec to a high of 35% in Alberta (Chart A.1).
Chart A.1 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Chart A.1 for Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada issue 2015001

Description for Chart A.1

End of text box.

Top of Page

Summary

This report presents the initial findings from the General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating. In 2013, both the number and the proportion of volunteers were lower than in 2010. A decrease was also recorded in the proportion of donors.
That said, the average and the total number of volunteer hours were virtually unchanged from 2010. Also, the total amount given to non-profit or charitable organizations increased between 2010 and 2013. Overall, Canadians gave $12.8 billion to charitable or non-profit organizations. On average, donors gave $531 a year, compared to $470 in 2010.
Both volunteers and donors are getting older and more educated: more and more volunteer hours are contributed by seniors and older Canadians, and a greater proportion of all donations come from that demographic group. This changing profile could have many consequences for the voluntary and philanthropy sector in terms of the type of volunteer activities, the types of organizations benefiting from volunteerism and charitable giving, and the dollar amount of monetary contributions.
This article has provided a general overview of volunteering and charitable giving patterns in 2013. Forthcoming reports will provide more in-depth analysis on both volunteering and charitable giving.

Top of Page

Data sources and definitions

This release provides data from the 2013 General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating (GVP). It is the sixth iteration of a series of surveys that began with the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (NSGVP) in 1997. The survey was last conducted in 2010.
The 2013 GSS GVP continues the method of measuring giving, volunteering and participating established by the 2004, 2007 and 2010 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (CSGVP). CSGVP replaced the way these behaviours were measured in the 1997 and 2000 NSGVP. For this reason, it is not appropriate to compare results from the 2013 GSS GVP or the 2010, 2007, or 2004 CSGVP with previous NSGVP estimates. For more details, see Summary of changes over time – General Social Survey – Giving, Volunteering and Participating (GVP).
This survey is the result of a partnership of federal government departments and voluntary sector organizations that includes Canadian Heritage, Employment and Social Development Canada, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency, Statistics Canada, Imagine Canada, and Volunteer Canada.

Volunteers

In this report, volunteers are people who have provided a service, without monetary compensation, for a group or organization at least once during the 12 months preceding the survey. This includes any unpaid help provided to schools, religious organizations, sports or community associations.
In order to identify volunteers in the General Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, respondents were asked the following questions, including a preamble:
“Now, I’d like to ask you some questions about any activities that you did without pay on behalf of a group or an organization in the past 12 months.
This includes any unpaid help you provided to schools, religious organizations, sports or community associations.
Did you do any 1) canvassing; 2) fundraising; 3) Did you sit as a member of a committee or board; 4) Did you do any teaching, educating or mentoring; 5) Did you organize, supervise or coordinate activities or events; 6) Did you do any office work, bookkeeping, administrative duties, or library work; 7) Did you coach, referee or officiate; 8) counsel or provide advice; 9) provide health care or support including companionship; 10) collect, serve or deliver food or other goods; 11) Did you do any work associated with the maintenance, repair or building of facilities or grounds; 12) volunteer driving; 13) provide help through first aid, fire-fighting, or search and rescue; 14) engage in activities aimed at conservation or protection of the environment or wildlife; 15) In the past 12 months, did you do any other unpaid activities on behalf of a group or an organization?”.
Respondents who reported that they did any one of these activities were considered as volunteers.

Donors

Donors are defined as those who have made at least one monetary donation to a charity or non-profit during the 12 months preceding the survey. This definition excludes donations of food, clothing and household goods. Donations from public and private companies and non-profit organizations and corporations are not included in the data. For those who are married or in a common-law union, the financial donations may include those made jointly with a spouse or partner.
More specifically, respondents are asked: “In the past 12 months, did you make a charitable donation: 1) by responding to a request through the mail?; 2) by responding to a telephone request?; 3) by responding to a television or radio request, or a telethon?; 4) online?; 5) by approaching a charitable or non–profit organization on your own?; 6) by paying to attend a charity event?; 7) by donating in the name of someone who has passed away, or ’in memoriam’?; 8) when asked by someone at work?; 9) when asked by someone doing door-to-door canvassing?; 10) when asked by someone canvassing for a charitable organization at a shopping centre or on the street?; 11) through a collection at a church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship?; 12) by sponsoring someone in an event such as a walk-a-thon?; 13) In the past 12 months, were there any other methods in which you gave money to a charitable or non–profit organization?”.
Respondents who said yes to any of these questions were considered as donors.

Top of Page

References

Brooks, Arthur C. 2005. “Does Social Capital Make you Generous?” Social Science Quarterly vol. 86, no.1.
Brown, Eleanor and James M.Ferris. 2007. “Social Capital and Philanthropy: An Analysis of the Impact of Social Capital on Individual Giving and Volunteering” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol.36.
Dunn, Elizabeth W., Lara B. Aknin and Michael I. Norton. 2008. “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness” Science, vol.319, no.5870, March 2008.
Jenkinson, Caroline E. , Andy P. Dickens, Kerry Jones, Jo Thompson-Coon, Rod S. Taylor, Morwenna Rogers, Clare L. Bambra, Iain Lang and Suzanne H. Richards. 2013. “Is volunteering a public health intervention? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the health and survival of volunteers”, BMC Public Health, vo.13.
Thomas, Derrick. 2012. “Giving and volunteering among Canada’s immigrants” Canadian Social Trends, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008.
Turcotte, Martin. 2012. “Charitable giving by Canadians” Canadian Social Trends, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008.
Vézina, Mireille and Suzan Crompton. 2012. “Volunteering in Canada” Canadian Social Trends, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008.
Wang, Lili and Elizabeth Graddy. 2008. “Social Capital, Volunteering, and Charitable Giving” Voluntas, vol.19.
Wu, Huiting. 2011. Social Impact of Volunteerism. Points of Light Institute.

Top of Page

Notes

Note 1.: The gender gap in volunteering was greater than average in this age range: 52% of women aged 35 to 44 did volunteer work in 2013, compared with 44% of men in the same age range. The difference could not be explained by fewer mothers working full-time. Among parents aged 35 to 44 who were working full-time, 56% of women volunteered during the year, compared with 48% of men.

Return to note 1 referrer
Note 2.: Top volunteers contributed at least 169 hours in 2013, 160 hours in 2010, 170 hours in 2007 and 179 hours in 2004. These top volunteers, while representing only one quarter of all people who do volunteer work through an organization, typically contribute more than 75% of all volunteer hours given to non-profit and charitable organizations (Vézina and Crompton, 2012).

Return to note 2 referrer
Note 3.: Religious organizations include organizations promoting religious beliefs and administering religious services and rituals (for example, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, shrines, seminaries, monasteries and similar religious institutions), in addition to related organizations and auxiliaries of such organizations.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed

Canada’s top-rated charities

Canadian Red Cross

United Way of Calgary and Area

Rick Hansen Institute

Chalice Canada

Compassion Canada

Samaritan's Purse

BC SPCA

TIFF

Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank

Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities

President's Choice Children's Charity

War Amps of Canada

CANADA Foreign Aid

How it Started

How it Evolved

Government to Government Aid

Non-Governmental Aid

What is Foreign Aid For?

Does Foreign Aid Work?

How Canadians Can Help

During Major Disasters and Other Emergencies Abroad

O CANADA- same thing- The Great British rake-off... what really happens to the billions YOU donate to charity: Fat cat pay, appalling waste and hidden agendas

The great aid mystery

Chapter Five: The Foreign Aid Debate

International Aid as a Cure for Poverty

How Foreign Aid Can Help Earth's Poorest Citizens

Problems Associated with Foreign Aid

Summary

Sources

Volunteering and charitable giving in Canada

More than 4 in 10 Canadians volunteered in 2013

Younger people most likely to volunteer

Decline in the volunteer rate most pronounced among persons aged 35 to 44

Older volunteers less likely to volunteer but contributed the most hours

Changing profile of the volunteer population: older and more educated

Volunteers are becoming more and more educated

Proportionally fewer Canadians were donors but they donated more

Donors aged 55 and over gave the most

Four-fifths of financial donations made by 25% of donors

Slightly more than 40% of all financial donations went to religious organizations

Women contributed 53% of all donations to religious organizations

Highest donor rate in Newfoundland and Labrador

Volunteers

Donors

No comments:

Post a Comment