Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Larissa Bezo]

The projects in Africa have recently been completed, so there's nothing we're presently implementing in Africa. But we're also quite active in terms of partnerships in the Middle East through various aspects of our organization.

We're not presently involved in Haiti, but we certainly expressed interest in becoming involved, because we feel that our organization could bring value-added. I think the one important element to highlight is that as a non-governmental organization, we're a membership organization. Our members comprise 200 plus universities, colleges, and schools across Canada. Beyond implementing technical assistance projects, beyond implementing projects for DFAIT that relate to international scholarships, we basically promote relationships between our member associations and our partners in other countries.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have one last question.

I would like to know if CIDA has ever refused to fund one of your projects, or a partnership with any given country.

[Larissa Bezo]

I think I'll defer to you, Kristina.

[Kristina Wittfooth]

We have had both rejected and approved projects, so it depends. Some were not so much rejected, but we have had a recent one rejected, and that was perhaps mainly because of shifting priorities within CIDA. So we try to, of course, follow CIDA's priorities, so we can then—

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Where was that project supposed to take place, Ms. Wittfooth?

[Kristina Wittfooth]

Yes, we presented to the partnership branch at CIDA, a project that involved three countries: Ghana, Ethiopia, and Mali. That was to be a five-year project, where we would help these countries with a millennium development goal and localization of the millennium development goals. We worked for 18 months with CIDA to develop the project proposal, and it was rejected.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time. We're going to have to move it over here.

We have the combination of Mr. Abbott, Mr. Van Kesteren, and Mr. Goldring, for five minutes--and Mr. Lunney.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

In response to the good question of Mr. Dewar—and I mean a good question—I just wanted to read into the record DFAIT's policy found on its website, which may be an answer:

Canada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values, from our central role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947/1948 to our work at the United Nations today. Canada is a party to seven major international human rights conventions, as well as many others, and encourages all countries which have not made these commitments to do so. Canadians recognise that their interests are best served by a stable, rules-based international system. Countries which respect the rule of law tend to respect the rights of their citizens, are more likely to benefit from development, and are much less likely to experience crises requiring peacekeeping, emergency assistance or refugee resettlement missions.

This fundamentally works to the issue of building capacity of the nations of the world to respond in a civilized way between governments and citizens.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

That was exactly one minute and 15 seconds.

Mr. Lunney, just take note of how long that is and we'll keep passing along.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much.

I have been very impressed by the Canadian model of public service international engagement that you very capably described. Is this model that you've described for us today unique, or are other nations doing the same thing? Are there other models, and how does our model compare with what other nations are doing?

[Kristina Wittfooth]

I think Ms. Bezo is the right person here, because a significant comparative analysis has been done under this project.

[Larissa Bezo]

Absolutely.

Here I think there are both unique and common elements. If one were to do a comparative analysis of different governments' and different donors' approaches to providing this kind of input and partnership, I think one could categorize them into two groups, one being those who have clear programming priorities and their own programming framework, who tend to come into countries, albeit attempting to be responsive, but with their own ideas and their own supply-side organizations who are willing to come in and provide input. In the Ukrainian case, our observation experience has been that they tend to be less effective, in that they're simply not connected to the demands or the needs that exist in a given jurisdiction.

The reverse side, which we highlighted in our presentation, is really the demand side of the equation, where there is an articulated need. I think what's most significant about those donors, about the governments that are providing those kinds of inputs, is in fact how they go about assessing that demand or that need. Is it a genuine need? It's certainly not sufficient to simply have a government official tell you, “Well, this is a priority. We'd like you to come.” So common among those kinds of donors is a fairly rigorous process for assessing the need that exists in a jurisdiction, which I think is very important.

It is worth highlighting that when we look at what the beneficiary partner brings to a potential future relationship, it's interesting to see not only the kinds of verbal or perhaps initial written signals they send, but the kind of commitment they bring to the partnership they're seeking. You have cases, for instance, in which beneficiaries will come forward and insist on providing either financial or in-kind contributions to the partnership, and this is very significant. In the case of our particular project, our Ukrainian beneficiary insisted, in an MOU that was signed with our government, that they provide, albeit unsolicited, a minimum of 20 percent in-kind or financial contribution to the initiative. Twenty percent of a $5-million project is a very significant commitment on the part of a beneficiary. The secondment of staff, as I mentioned, in our particular model is very significant.

So there are elements such as those that point to the kind of commitment you would see, and the effectiveness of the kinds of partnerships that can be generated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Just before Mr. Goldring has a very short question, you mentioned there's been some work done, research. Are there any reports or things you could provide the committee that might be helpful?

[Larissa Bezo]

Certainly we could provide some of the international assessments that have been done. We would be more than happy to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That would be great. Thank you very much.

I just want to get a feel here. Dr. Patry, you're going to have a final question?

Mr. Dewar, did you have any other comments?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, so we'll just finish with Mr. Goldring, go to Dr. Patry, and then we'll wrap up.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

With regard to these reports--which was the question I was going to ask, Mr. Chairman—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, you're done.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

No, I'm not quite finished yet. I'd like to have an understanding of the methodology. How is this report from the Public Service Commission done? Understandably, there would be sensitivities regarding the reporting and your contract and the expectations and whether you were seen to be responsible for convincing the politicals to follow along with the course of action you're suggesting. The reporting I'm seeing here in my mind is not very clear, and it certainly isn't specific. I would think the political would be very specific.

In your report, do you have a chance to be very critical, very directive on what assistance you need, very plain on what you feel you need to help you with the programs you're doing now? It certainly would be beneficial for us to understand, if it were very clearly laid out, what would help. And who is the reporting to?

[Kristina Wittfooth]

I will answer the first part of the question, the Canadian part, as to our responsibility and accountability to the donor, in our case to CIDA. I will let Mrs. Bezo answer on what is reported and how the Ukrainian partner needs to respond to the findings.

We have regular reporting requirements in our contract with CIDA. We report annually through an annual report and we have a biannual report. So there two big narrative reports per year, and then we have quarterly financial reports to CIDA. That is the rigour of our own reporting to the donor.

In these reports, we clearly indicate if there are variances or changes, and why. So we analyze changes to the project implementation plan, if changes have happened. But as that reporting is sometimes too slow, we also keep in very close communication with our donor partner, in our case CIDA, to keep them informed and to seek their advice—and even changes from them, if we see a problem and something that needs to be addressed.

In terms of the project's responsiveness, we have found very good cooperation with CIDA that way. If there are changes that need to be made, we have been able to work them out with CIDA.

And then when it comes to the Ukrainian part, Larissa....

[Larissa Bezo]

Of course there is also the accountability on the Ukrainian side, given the government's commitment to these kinds of partnerships. Typically, in most jurisdictions you would have a government department or minister responsible for coordinating these kinds of input. In the Ukrainian context, we have a quarterly report that we jointly produce with the beneficiary for the responsible ministry.

The other aspect of the monitoring and reporting worth highlighting is the third-party evaluations that tend to happen under these kinds of projects. These are either at the mid-term point of project implementation, or at the close of a project the funder, typically CIDA, would engage a third-party evaluator to assess the achieved versus expected results. And typically in the CIDA context you would also see evaluations being done of the entire country programming framework to see how results are being rolled out.

One of the points worth highlighting here is that in an ideal scenario, what you'd really love to see is a repository where you could bring together all of the lessons learned and all of the recommendations, either in a particular country of focus or in a sector, and roll them up so they can be shared, because these lessons tend to be quite siloed within an organization and the funder. I think we would all benefit from this broader dialogue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

You guys are pretty good, so we get to the last guy.

Dr. Patry, we're going to finish off with you, sir.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Very good, thank you very much.

I'll try to be as good.

Madame Bezo, you said that you're working in Ukraine with some partners and the World Bank. Are all of those partners just financial partners, or do you have some other NGO partners working with you in Ukraine?

[Larissa Bezo]

Given that this particular project is focused on civil service reform, we collaborate with other donors. So we have the Danish government working there and the Irish government, the European Union, and Canada, all covering aspects of and collaborating around civil service reform. The World Bank is also involved, but more in terms of providing institutional funding to our beneficiary. So those would be the key players.