Promoting international development through corporate social responsibility: the Canadian government's partnership with Canadian mining companies

Abstract

/RésumésA recent trend in mainstream international development discourse has been to emphasize the role corporations can play in promoting sustainable development in the Global South. In Canada, this is exemplified in a recent public-private partnership between the Canadian government, three Canadian mining companies, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to deliver development projects through the companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. This new partnership poses serious questions about the role, if any, that governments should be playing in financing the overseas CSR projects of multinational corporations. The paper argues that the Canadian government is increasingly allowing corporate actors to influence the country's development agenda, to the detriment of civil society actors. Moreover, the government is using CIDA (now DFATD), and ODA, not to promote development abroad, but to aid Canadian commercial interests by helping Canadian mining companies obtain a social licence to operate.