Foreign Affairs Committee on May 6th, 2024

[Christopher MacLennan]

I could for sure.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'll tell you why. In conversations with CSOs, I've been told it takes up to 19. The reason I raise this is that the Senate produced a report on diplomacy. Granted, it was more targeted at the foreign service, which isn't exactly this department, but the criticism I have heard of DFATD and the international development regime has been that through past cost-cutting exercises, the bottom has been trimmed but not so much the top.

I understand there are some efforts being made to address that. Can you speak to those?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I'll speak along two lines.

First, in response to your direct question, it's been pretty clear for a number of years that particularly our Canadian partners, but quite honestly also even large multilateral partners, have found the Government of Canada a very difficult partner to work through because of the thickness of our processes and the timelines that are often required to undertake the many components of putting together a contribution or grant arrangement.

The government takes this very seriously and has embarked on a rather serious process that also encompasses our grants and contributions transformation initiative, which the minister mentioned. We have actually brought in Canadian partners to help with the redesign, so we're actually co-designing and working together to figure out ways in which we can thin out all of those processes we were mentioning.

With respect to the question of bottom-heavy or top-heavy, under the transformation initiative there is a commitment to rationalizing the senior executive ranks at Global Affairs Canada. It's an ongoing process, as you know. It's a very large department in terms of the number of executives who are there. We're in year one, basically, or maybe at the end of year one, so we're—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Do you have a timeline for completion?

[Christopher MacLennan]

It will be over three years.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Would you expect that more funds would then flow potentially through our NGOs and Canadian-based civil society organizations, as opposed to through multilateral partners? That's another criticism I hear—that it's easier right now to flow funds through multilateral organizations, because some of the levels of accountability are transferred to the other organizations as opposed to being homegrown. We all want taxpayer money to be appropriately spent and reviewed, but that has to be done faster and better.

Do you have any comments on that?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I have two thoughts on that.

There is a commitment to use Canadian organizations more. The amounts going to Canadian organizations have stayed roughly in the $1 billion range over a number of years.

The challenge has been that the world changes. The needs, for example, we have to respond to very quickly dictate which tools would be best to have available. For example, Canada's support to Ukraine, which has been massive over the last two years, has required us to use the IMF, the International Monetary Fund. There are times when it's difficult to use Canadian organizations, depending upon what the challenge is.

However, we are working to find ways to better leverage Canadian organizations.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to switch gears a bit. As you are aware, this committee is undertaking a study of Africa, and our response has many levels to it. In assessing projects under the international development framework, to what extent is the lens of trade used? I know there are other lenses that are used when evaluating projects.

To what extent is the benefit of trade considered, both to the host and to the donor country? The donor in this case is Canada.

[Christopher MacLennan]

In general, it depends on the context we are working within. A good portion of the development assistance programming that we undertake is dedicated to specific sectors of development, such as global health or sexual reproductive health and rights. There are fewer opportunities there to make the link to trade and improving trade.

However, we also do a significant amount of work in the economic development sphere, and there are more direct relations to trade there. As part of the Indo-Pacific strategy, there is a dedicated effort to find ways to better use our development assistance to respond to the needs of developing countries in the Indo-Pacific area that would facilitate trade for them, but also, obviously, directly with Canada. I would say the same opportunities are possible in Africa.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Here's a more specific question. Why was $5 million dollars from the DFATD budget transferred over to the Department of the Environment for the Africa food accelerator?

I don't quite follow that one.

[Christopher MacLennan]

That's a good question.

You can take it. Okay.

[Peter MacDougall, Assistant Deputy Minister, Global Issues and Development, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you.

This funding is part of our overall $5.3-billion climate finance initiative. Most of the money flows via Global Affairs, but we also accept project proposals from departments. In this case, it was Environment Canada working with a platform to support adaptation activities on food security in Africa.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

That was a project initiated—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

That's your time, Mr. Epp. Thank you.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We'll go to MP Chatel next. You have six minutes.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to share my time with my colleague, Mr. Alghabra.

I'll keep talking with the witnesses about Canada's investments in developing countries to fight climate change and its effects, which often affect vulnerable people more acutely. I know that a $450 million investment was promised as part of the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations fund created by the Paris Agreement.

Has this money been provided? If so, how does it make a difference? What about all the other money contributed to various organizations? Do you assess the impact of your financial support for international organizations?

[Christopher MacLennan]

Yes, absolutely. The goal of all these investments is to make an impact. However, we often talk about loans. In these cases, it's different. We use innovative funding mechanisms. These include longer‑term loans lasting up to 15 or 20 years, over which the impact will be spread out. That said, we can still use a few key indicators to assess the results of each fund, such as how many tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions were prevented and how many cars were taken off the road.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you. I'll now give the floor to my colleague.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Deputy and officials, thank you very much for being here today.

I want to build on what Mr. Epp has asked. I come across different charitable organizations that raise money and do a lot of what appears, to me, to be excellent work abroad, but organizations that have never been granted any funds for projects find it—at least, they tell me they do—very difficult to be a first-time applicant.

What is your advice to them for how they should go about demonstrating their work and trying to have the best application put forward?

[Christopher MacLennan]

That's a very good question. It's been a challenge for a very long time.

As was mentioned, the rules with respect to offering a grant or a contribution arrangement with an organization are sometimes quite detailed, and it requires knowledge of the situation on the ground.

We expect to get results from these projects, obviously. The challenge often with a number of small and medium-sized organizations is that they have small footprints globally, and that requires us both to help them with their concept notes, for example, to how to better write the proposals that they're making, and to work with them. For that reason, we did a dedicated call for small and medium-sized organizations, so that they were targeted for the purposes of opening up a chance for new organizations to take part in Canadian assistance.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

When did that happen, and how successful has it been?

[Christopher MacLennan]

As I mentioned earlier, a number of organizations have already received funding, and it's ongoing. We have a large number of other ones that have gone through the process and have been approved in terms of the quality of the proposal. It's ongoing, and I can get you the specifics with respect to that call.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

When GAC examines applications, does it also look at the organization's ability to deliver work globally? There are some organizations that tend to specialize in certain parts of the world. Does it work against them if they're regionally focused?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I wouldn't say that it works against them if they're regionally focused. Global Affairs Canada has funding in all corners of the world. We have programs in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, so there are lots of opportunities around the globe.

For certain, the government has made a commitment to act upon a number of really important sectors: global health, sexual reproductive health and rights, climate change and food security, so a predominant amount of our global development assistance spending is in those areas, which means that organizations that align with those priorities have greater opportunities in that respect.