CIDA - Pakistan

I had the opportunity to speak with the First Secretary of Development at the Canadan International Development Agency (CIDA) today. She explained the focus and organization of CIDA before listing many other resources in development.



CIDA provides Canada's government agency that "contributes to poverty reduction and sustainable development through support for democratic local goverance, social development, and gender equality" in Pakistan, according to an internal March 2005 publication. Education and health programs seem to fall under social development, but this First Secretary coordinates the governance and gender equality programs.

She described each focus but clarified that gender equality was a cross-cutting issue that must be addressed or included in each CIDA program. For example, a proposal would not just list five schools to be built, but rather 3 girl schools and 2 boy schools (with extra funding for girl schools for requisite extra exterior walls for cultural considerations). I was surprised but this regular gender separation in local schools; I really need to sit in a rural school. This brings up the real matter of intercultural issues delivering aid, which I won't elaborate on today (but something I try to address in our school's work in Kashmir, post-7.6).

The organization of the Canadian High Commission runs from the Ambassador, to Counselors, to First Secretaries, to Second Secretaries, etc. The counselors seem to head the six departments that include foreign affairs, immigration, and more that really wasn't my focus of the day.

The First Secretary also listed a number of resources that I hope will help our school in its earthquake relief efforts, which has really fallen in the lap of anyone interested in development in Pakistan. It seems that Canada funnels funnels around 25 million Canadian dollars into Pakistan (80% with CIDA and 20% with Canadian NGOs), but CIDA Pakistan has four employees so this development is done through many outside agencies or through their "annex," the Project Support Unit (PSU).

She pulled on a spreadsheet of Muzaffarabad and Neelum Districts, located the nearest town to Siana (Hatian Bala), and gave me two agencies that work in education: Al-Falah Welfare Society and Turkish Red Crescent Society. Other suggestions were Save the Children - UK, World Vision, and UNICEF for education resources. Outside education (and our school's plan to rebuild a local in Siana during the spring), CIDA works with Sungi, Amal, RSP, and Taraquee that support earthquake relief. Her wealth of information has given me a number of directions and resources to utilize in our school's community outreach.