June 27, 2012
The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) has just released its most recent Peer Review of Canada’s foreign aid efforts. Led by France and the Netherlands, DAC member countries (the 24 leading traditional aid donors) made some useful and pointed remarks about how Canada is seen internationally. Interestingly, they do not share the view expressed by Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda that Canada is a leader in global development cooperation efforts.
Among other things, Canada is faulted for not having “…a clear, top-level statement that sets out its vision for development cooperation.” Hardly surprising. That would require the government to be transparent, committed to poverty reduction (as required by law since 2008) and set out policies for themes and sectors so that its partners know what it is aiming to achieve through its aid program. Canada’s much-vaunted aid effectiveness action plan does not seem to have impressed: “The 2009 Aid Effectiveness Action Plan has two major weaknesses: first, it is only an action plan for CIDA and excludes other parts of Canada’s development cooperation system; and second, it combines organisational efficiency and domestic accountability with the Paris Declaration principles themselves.”
While the DAC notes the increase in Canada’s aid volume from 2001 and 2010, it has noticed that of late the pattern has been reversed. The report says that “Given Canada’s expected healthy rate of economic growth (2-3%) over the medium term this reduction in aid volume is likely to lead to further decline in ODA:GNI ratios and would reverse many of the gains of the last ten years.” The reviewers could have been a lot tougher in calling for more aid from Canada. They were not impressed by the methodology followed to reduce the number of Canada’s countries of focus (major bilateral partners), noting that we now have major aid programs in only seven sub-Saharan African countries, despite that region having the furthest to go to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The DAC seems to have bought the line that Canada has made progress on transparency. This will come as a shock to many, especially Canadian civil society organisations like MATCH, Kairos, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, all of whom had their CIDA funding chopped with little if any explanation or notice.
It seems the DAC peers were given a copy of the most recent CIDA employee survey. On the list of concerns are: constantly changing priorities; too many approval stages for projects and initiatives; unreasonable deadlines and high rates of senior management staff turnover. With regard to the latter, when noting the astonishingly long tenure of Minister Oda, many outside CIDA – and perhaps inside – would suggest there hasn’t been enough turnover.
What are we doing well? Canada untied all its food aid in 2008, previously 50% of Canadian food aid had to be purchased in Canada which pushed costs up and complicated timeliness of supply. The DAC compliments Canada for being “A consistent humanitarian donor despite lacking a clear public strategy” and notes our “…strong record as a constructive partner within the humanitarian community.” There is a key message, however, in the comment that greater reliance should be placed on CIDA’s humanitarian systems and more delegation to the humanitarian team to improve timeliness and effectiveness. In DAC-speak they are telling Minster Oda to lighten up, back off and let the professionals do their job.
How will the government respond? It will probably in its own sweet way tell the DAC to get lost. After all, several of the recommendations are the same ones made in 2007, the last time the DAC came to town. Since then the Harper government has discovered how much fun it can diverting aid to Latin American countries in furtherance of free trade arrangements, and co-financing questionable Canadian mining company projects. Why would the government want an aid strategy? It would only get in the way.
It is useful, however, through the DAC Review to get a glimpse of how other, serious aid donors perceive Canada. The DAC represents an important body of knowledge and experience on how to design and deliver aid programs that will make a difference in the lives of poor people around the world. Reading beyond the DAC-speak, it seems that we need to do a lot better.
For additional comment, see The Guardian: “OECD Criticizes Canada” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jun/20/oecd-canada-aid-budget-transparency?INTCMP=SRCH