In the last decade, Afghanistan and Haiti have been the two largest recipients of Canadian official development assistance (ODA), receiving more than the traditionally large recipients of Canadian aid of the 1990s such as Bangladesh and China. Key reasons for this transformation in Canadian priorities were the 9/11 attacks and perceived need to remove the Taiban regime from power in the case of Afghanistan, and the forced exit of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, as well as the more recent earthquake in the case of Haiti.

– We must be careful as a nation donating to fragile states