Description
Despite considerable attention on the financialization of development aid, its effects on development cooperation and solidarity organizations, including non-governmental organizations and labour unions, have garnered minimal attention. This article examines the effects of Canada's adoption of blended finance in its international assistance programs on civil society organizations operating in Canada involved in international development in aid-recipient countries. The shift towards blended finance is influenced by two trends: the transformation of the role of the state, which today perceives one of its principal functions as 'derisking' the private sector and the emergence of the 'beyond aid' agenda associated with the need to fill the 'funding gap' associated with to the 2030 United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Drawing on interviews with key actors and analyses of documents and official reports, the article concludes that government efforts to recruit development cooperation and solidarity organizations to embark on the blended finance agenda are part of a highly contested effort to promote a market-fundamentalist development model that is inherently exclusionary.
