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Canada’s new Feminist International Assistance Policy, launched in June 2017, committed to apply a gender-based, human rights approach in six areas that include gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, environment and climate action, inclusive government, and peace and security.

The new policy has been applauded by international partners, but others see a lack of substance in a policy that they say looks more like a branding exercise than a set of clear goals.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

While supporting gender equality objectives in international development, Christoph Zürcher, professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa, describes the feminist policy as, “highly ideological. It is not about the money; it’s the approach.”

Zürcher, who worked with Global Affairs Canada last year to undertake a systemic analysis of three of the policy’s action areas for evaluation, believes it is too abstract to evaluate and lacks the local context to be effective. Without clearly defining ‘a feminist approach and empowerment’, he fears it risks creating backlash in the very communities Canada seeks to empower. Those communities are best able to define what they need and in Zürcher’s experience do not welcome another country telling them what to do.

“If FIAP was a person, it would be a white, male, Canadian elementary school teacher – self-righteous, with limited world experience and very sure of himself,” said Zürcher.