Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development

Comité permanent des affaires étrangères et du développement international

For immediate release

Ottawa, March 20, 2018 -

Today, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development presented a report to the House of Commons entitled Focused, Independent, and Patient: Building a World-Class Canadian Development Finance Institution.

The report is the result of the Committee’s study of Canada’s Development Finance Institution (DFI). The Government of Canada announced the creation of the DFI in the 2017 federal budget and indicated that it would begin operations in 2018. DFIs are publicly-funded financial institutions that support economic growth in developing countries by investing in initiatives that have high development impact.

Over the course of its study, the Committee heard from a variety of witnesses, including academics, development practitioners and members of civil society organizations. It also heard from the Honourable Marie Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, and from the CDC Group – the United Kingdom’s development finance institution.

The report sets out the Committee’s key findings based on the testimony it heard, and makes six recommendations. In particular, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada should design the DFI to prioritize impactful and sustainable development, and strive to advance innovative solutions to current development challenges.

The Committee also recommends that the mandate of the DFI should focus on the core objective of catalyzing private investment for international development, and that it acknowledge that an emphasis on development impact requires the acceptance of greater financial risk. The full text of the Committee’s report is available on its website.

The report includes supplementary opinions from the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party of Canada.

Quote:

“During the study, the Committee heard the perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders on the role that the DFI should play in Canadian international development policy, what investment strategy the DFI should pursue, and how it should be structured. The Committee’s report emphasizes the pivotal role that Canada’s DFI can play in unlocking and catalyzing private sector capital, and in building partnerships between traditional stakeholders and others. I believe that the DFI can be an important Canadian tool to support of achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and I look forward to a comprehensive response by the Government of Canada to this report.

– Hon. Bob Nault, PC, MP, Chair