Following the release of the federal budget this spring, many members of Canada’s international development community worried about this country’s long-term commitment to families like the Hernandez’s. hankfully, a practical new framework for Canada’s international assistance, released Friday by Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister for International Development, underscores Canada’s commitment to our sector and provides relief for those troubled by Canada’s stalled aid contribution in the 2017 budget.

President Donald Trump's vow to put "America first" includes a plan to drastically cut assistance to developing countries and merge the State Department with USAID, according to an internal budget document and sources. The administration's March budget proposal vowed to slash aid to developing countries by over one-third, but contained few details. [...] The document details how the Trump administration's plans to reduce direct foreign assistance would take place in fiscal year 2018.

US spending on overseas aid is expected to bear the brunt of dramatic cuts as part of Trump’s plan to increase defence spending by $54bn in his upcoming budget. The US operates the largest and most expensive overseas aid programme in the world, with a proposed federal spend of $50.1bn for 2017 alone. More than $18bn of that is made up of economic and development assistance, commonly referred to as humanitarian aid. 

Britain is paying professional aid staff up to £1,000 a day to work in developing countries as part of a spending "frenzy" to meet a government target, a new report suggestst. Spending on consultants has doubled in the past four years to £1.4bn with the bill for outside help now eating up more than 10 per cent of the aid budget. The figures prompted anger among MPs, who described the practice as a "grotesque waste".