Category Archives: Official Development Assistance

Disappointment and fury in the wake of failed climate talks—and hope for the road ahead

by Jim Hodgson

“I am infuriated to come home to the aftermath of six typhoons that have struck the Philippines in the space of just four weeks with basically zero gains from COP29,” said Patricia Mungcal, a young climate advocate who serves as humanitarian manager with the National Council of Churches in the Philippines. 

“I will be telling thousands of Filipino families who were devastated by these strong typhoons that world leaders have left us to suffer the heaviest impacts of the climate crisis and disregarded our demands for finance and reparations. This failure to address loss and damage is a grave disregard of our human dignity and rights. We charge this failure of COP29 to the moral bankruptcy of the rich, polluting nations.”

News from Philippines and (right) Patricia Mungcal (screenshot from WCC video)

At the recent climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, world leaders failed miserably in their response to the climate crisis and its consequences. Of the $1.3 trillion of climate finance that independent experts estimate will be required annually by 2030, the UN climate conference agreed to provide just $300bn every year – by 2035 (Progressive International newsletter, Dec. 3).

Meanwhile, governments around the globe (including Canada) are still ploughing billions of dollars into fossil fuel subsidies to shelter citizens from higher energy costs, but that comes with a fiscal burden and impedes the goal of reducing overall use.

And Philippines had six typhoons. In the Canadian Rockies, Jasper townsite burned—just days after I had written about climate disasters in British Columbia.

What is to be done?

More often now, we are seeing the connection between the climate crisis and the growing indebtedness of the so-called “highly indebted poor countries” (HIPC). And proposals for a new international financial architecture are once again getting attention. 

In June, Pope Francis pressed leading economists and world finance ministers to support new mechanisms to ease foreign debt, lamenting that “poorly managed globalization” has deprived millions of people of a “dignified future.”

“Ecological debt and foreign debt are two sides of the same coin that mortgages the future,” the pope said. “For this reason, dear friends, the Holy Year of 2025, to which we are heading, calls us to open our minds and hearts to be able to untie the knots of the ties that strangle the present, without forgetting that we are only custodians and stewards, not masters.”

The focus of this Jubilee Year is gaining ecumenical and inter-faith support. In Canada, KAIROS will lead a Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee campaign, in step with global debt relief efforts. “These are inspired by the Jubilee tradition from the Book of Leviticus. Rooted in faith, Jubilee calls for the release of debts, liberation from servitude, and the return of seized lands—principles that resonate deeply in today’s world,” says KAIROS. This campaign aims to:

  • Cancel unjust debts. 
  • Establish a UN-led mechanism for debt resolution. 
  • Prevent future cycles of crippling debt.

The 2025 meeting of G7 (leaders of the richest countries) will be held June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Alberta (southwest of Calgary).

“Confronting threats to the living planet.” Photo: Valter Muniz, WCC)

A “Manual for Mutiny”

The global Progressive International network, meanwhile, is presenting a Program of Action on the Construction of a New International Economic Order. It speaks of a “polycrisis”—the combination of the “old crises of debt, dependency and under-development” combined now with “an accelerating crisis of climate to threaten not only the developmental prospects of the South—but also, in the case of many small island states, their very existence.”

The Program of Action offers nearly three dozen measures across five broad sections: to leverage the South’s natural wealth, labor power, and collective voice in order to extract concessions from Northern partners; to bolster the sovereign development agenda by building Southern alternatives to Northern institutions; and to pool Southern knowledge, resources, and ingenuity in service of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

To that, I would add: Systemic failure demands system change.

What you can do

Keep an eye on KAIROS, of course, and on Development and Peace-Caritas Canada for ways to get involved in the new Jubilee campaigns.

I also want to share with you some suggestions from Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet.

“For climate action to happen at scale, conversations have to move beyond international summits to what’s happening in our communities, our workplaces, and our organizations. And there, change isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we catalyze,” she wrote after COP29.

She suggests starting conversations “about climate solutions where you work or study. Ask what your organization is already doing, and what more it could do—and share that with people around you, particularly those who can make decisions.”

That will be especially important as Canadians vote in a federal election in 2025, and as one party opts for simplistic slogans over serious conversations about climate policy.

United States takes modest step towards easing its long embargo against Cuba

By Jim Hodgson

A modest step forward in the long struggle to end the failed U.S. embargo came this week when the United States removed Cuba from its short list of countries it alleges are “not cooperating fully” in its fight against terrorism. “This move… could well be a prelude to the State Department reviewing Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” William LeoGrande, a professor at Washington’s American University, told Reuters.

Left: Reuters coverage. Right: As reported by CubaDebate – “State Department recognises the lie, but does not remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.” President Miguel Diaz-Canel told interviewer Ignacio Ramonet that many of Cuba’s economic woes begin with the U.S. blockade, tightened in 2021 with “the inclusion of Cuba in a spurious list determined at will by the U.S. government of countries that supposedly support terrorism.”

Until this week, the administration of President Joe Biden had made only minor reforms—easing some restrictions on travel and family remittances in May 2022—but had scarcely budged from the harsh measures taken by his predecessor, Donald Trump, much less attaining Barack Obama’s level of engagement.

It was just days just before the end of Trump’s administration in January 2021 that Cuba was added to the list of “state sponsors of terrorism” (SST)—because Cuba was hosting peace talks between the Colombian government and one of the guerrilla armies, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). Despite occasional setbacks, the Colombian peace process moves forward slowly.

Biden’s new move comes after three years of non-stop advocacy by churches and other non-governmental organizations to end the embargo and to have Cuba removed from the SST list.

Efforts by churches, unions and other groups are driven by a sharp deterioration of the Cuban economy that is partly a consequence of the SST and other measures as banks and other corporations fear running afoul of the U.S. measures. The economic downturn is also related to reduced tourist visits to the country during the Covid pandemic and Cuba’s abandonment of its former two-currency system (one tied to the U.S. dollar, and the other that effectively subsidized local transactions).

In April 2023, an informal alliance of more than 20 Canadian churches, trade unions, development agencies and community solidarity groups wrote to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and to then-International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan to express alarm at the “deterioration of the Cuban economy and consequent impacts on the Cuban people.”

They called on the government to press the United States to ease sanctions and to remove Cuba from the SST list. They also asked that Canada “scale up its efforts to provide immediate food, medicines, and medical supplies to Cuba” (whether directly with the Cuban state or via NGOs and multilateral organizations). 

Canada has made some efforts, notably the announcement March 6 of a $540,000 contribution to the World Food Program to support provision of 150 tons of milk that will assist Cuban children. Canada’s response followed just two days after the Cuban government had made its first-ever request to WFP for food aid. Canada continues to fund the work of NGOs such as Oxfam and CARE Canada in Cuba.

The Canadian letter echoed earlier calls from Cuban and U.S. churches. In a joint letter sent Feb. 18, 2021, they asked Biden to to restore travel, remittances and trade with Cuba; to remove Cuba from the list of “state sponsors of terrorism;” to rescind Trump’s mandate to use extraterritorial provisions of the Helms-Burton law; and to rebuild U.S. diplomatic presence in Cuba. On March 13, 2023, more than 20 U.S. faith groups wrote to Biden to ask that Cuba be removed from the SST list.

The SST designation, along with Trump’s application of measures contained in the 1995 Helms-Burton Act, have extraterritorial impacts. Foreign-owned ships won’t dock in Cuba and foreign banks are reluctant to transfer funds for fear of running afoul of the U.S. laws. To understand better the impact of the SST in Cuba, please read a long report by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

The extraterritorial features of the Helms-Burton law provoked anger in Canada and Europe, but those features were effectively waived by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. In April 2019, Trump revived them. Canada repeated its objection, and reminded Canadians that amendments in 1996 to Canada’s Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (FEMA) stipulate that any judgment issued under Helms-Burton “shall neither be recognized nor enforceable in any manner in Canada.”

But Canada, to my knowledge, has yet to say anything publicly about the SST list.

Meanwhile, churches, NGOs and solidarity groups continue to provide aid to Cuba, including in response to damage caused by Hurricane Ian in western Cuba in 2022 and after the oil storage facility fire in Matanzas in 2022. 

Vancouver-based CoDevelopment Canada is collecting material to send in a container to Cuban trade unions later this summer. 

The U.S. Cuba Normalization Coalition has a fact sheet about U.S.-backed attacks on Cuba. “Cuba has endured 64 years of a U.S. economic blockade.This intensified when President Trump unjustifiably put Cuba on a list of so-called State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT).President Biden has continued that listing. Companies worldwide that want to sell medicines or food to Cuba often can’t because their own bank refuses to accept Cuba’s payment under threat of enormous fines from the U.S.treasury for dealing with ‘terrorists’.”

Haitian claim for slavery reparations at the heart of a UN forum

by Jim Hodgson

A United Nations forum on the historic wrongs committed against people of African descent is building momentum in favour of an international tribunal on atrocities dating back to the transatlantic trade of enslaved people.

When the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) held its third session in less than two years in Geneva in mid-April, African and Caribbean governments together with civil society organizations pressed forward with plans to create a tribunal that would be similar to that which oversaw the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II.

Proponents say such a tribunal would help establish legal norms for international and historical reparations claims.

Supporters include many members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), made up of 15 member states, and the African Union (AU), which includes 55 states—and Antonio Guterres, the UN General Secretary. “We call for reparatory justice frameworks, to help overcome generations of exclusion and discrimination,” he said March 25.

Supporters argue that Western countries and institutions that continue to benefit from the wealth slavery generated should be held accountable, particularly given ongoing legacies of racial discrimination. Opponents say that contemporary states and institutions should not be held responsible for historical slavery.

The World Council of Churches was among faith-based and civil society organizations that came together at the PFPAD forum to examine what states and other actors may do to redress the historic exploitation and harms that Africans and people of African descent have suffered. (You can learn more here about global ecumenical efforts to overcome racism, discrimination and xenophobia.)

Righting the wrongs in Haiti

Given that Haiti’s claim for reparations is among the strongest, the voices of Haitian civil society groups and their diaspora counterparts were heard at the PFPAD forum. 

Those groups used the forum to put a spotlight on the crucial role that Haiti played in the struggle to end slavery. “To recognize the historic context is essential to understand the unique position of Haiti in the global struggle for justice and egality,” they said in a statement before the forum. Participating groups—including the Montana Accord network and of the Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy (HAFFD)—said they strongly approve calls for reparations to Haiti.

Le Marron Inconnu, and in the background, the National Palace before the 2010 earthquake.

Haiti was born as an independent nation in 1804 after the enslaved people revolted against their French colonial masters. The values of “liberté, égalité et fraternité,” expressed in the triumph of the French Revolution in 1789, resonated among slaves in Saint-Domingue, France’s richest colony. In 1804, the world’s first successful slave rebellion resulted in the birth of the Republic of Haiti. 

Beginning in 1825, France squeezed an “independence debt” from Haiti that adds up to at least $21 billion in today’s dollars. That estimate comes from The New York Times, but backers of the reparations claim say the amount is much higher.

“It’s $21 billion plus 200 years of interest that France has enjoyed so we’re talking more like $150 billion, $200 billion or more,” Jemima Pierre, professor of Global Race at the University of British Columbia, told Reuters.

Despite the obvious injustice of that debt, France continues to resist pressure to join in reparations. In August 2010, about 100 prominent academics, authors, and human rights activists signed on to an open letter to then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that the case for repayment was “morally, economically, and legally unassailable.” France dismissed the petition, pointing to its record of delivering other aid to Haiti and not addressing the legitimacy of the debt.

“What’s important is that it’s time that France recognises this and we move forward,” Haitian civil society activist Monique Clesca told Reuters. France, whose development agency has given hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Haiti, has previously referred to a “moral debt” owed to Haiti.