Foreign Affairs Committee on May 17th, 2016

[François Audet]

That's the point I wanted to make earlier. It's important for the Canadian government to avoid getting too close to co-operation agencies. The government needs their help, not to mention their existence is essential, but the job of reporting on needs and overseas situations shouldn't be solely up to them. In terms of institutional survival, it's important to keep in mind that these agencies, non-profits though they may be, are still businesses at the end of the day. And that means that the dispersion of aid will always be warranted.

As you know, once jobs are created, they don't go anywhere. It's similar to the situation with Quebec's CEGEPs. It works the same with co-operation agencies. Maintaining a certain measure of diversity is important when collecting information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Audet.

Mr. Levitt, please.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I actually want to come back to the issue that I was exploring with the previous guest, which was around obstacles, particularly as they relate to delivery and less in terms of domestic policy.

Professor Brown, you talked about reducing and eliminating poverty and reducing inequality, but there are factors like civil unrest and conflict in the countries of focus, as well as state corruption, red tape in NGOs, UN agencies, and things like admin fees and money getting batted around before it actually reaches local networks and local actors that are in a position to make a difference in a very tangible way. If the goal is getting the development dollars where they're needed most, how do we build the system or how do we adapt or modify our system to remove some of these obstacles so that we can more effectively get the money where it needs to go? Do you see this as a problem?

I guess I should have asked that first: do you feel that these obstacles are a problem?

[Prof. Stephen Brown]

Yes, absolutely, the obstacles are a problem, and there's no easy answer to any of them. When a civil war breaks out, it is going to hamper your aid delivery and it will increase overhead costs.

I think that what happens all too often is that aid effectiveness is not the determining factor in aid programs. Often, these are very political decisions. The largest program the Canadian government has ever had in foreign aid was in Afghanistan, and that was all about security interests. It was about showing to NATO that Canada was a team player.

In many ways, the spending was very misguided, so much of the money was wasted. Our focus in Kandahar was related to the fact that we had Canadian troops there. There was this facile idea that aid would help win hearts and minds.

These considerations are not helpful for aid effectiveness. We need to take into account things like absorptive capacity. I'm in favour of increasing aid budgets, but often we're presented with a false dichotomy, such that it means you're just throwing money out the window or through the door.

I think aid should be smart aid. It should be spent well. This requires a Global Affairs Canada that has staff who are well trained, who know what they're doing, and who, as we've discussed, are decentralized, who have presence on the ground, with decision-making authority, and who can be more nimble.

In one book I edited, there was a chapter by Molly den Heyer, who talked about budget support to the Tanzanian government. They would have a donor meeting, and the U.K. would say it was putting in this amount and the Danes would say they were was putting in that amount. They were doing basket funding that had been negotiated over a long-term period. It was considered the right way to do aid. It was not isolated little projects, but joint support for the Government of Tanzania for.... I can't remember which sector. Perhaps it was education. It was to support the education sector rather than to just build one school in one community. The Canadian representative was not actually able to make any commitment and had to go back to Ottawa.

Canada's representative was the only one at the table who said, “I can't tell you because I need to check first.” Then it turned out that Treasury Board guidelines prohibited Canada from transferring what I think was $10 million to the Government of Tanzania, so Canada gave it to the World Bank, and then the World Bank gave it to the Government of Tanzania. The World Bank charged $1 million, I think, as a fee for carrying out this service, so nothing was gained except by the World Bank. Canada had to go through this red tape and the Government of Tanzania got $1 million less.

The parts of the problem that we can do the most about are the parts that are internal to Canada. The problems abroad, such as corruption, civil strife and so on, are very, very complex. That's where we need well-trained and empowered people who are knowledgeable on the ground, people who can respond to these issues and come up with strategies that are appropriate, people who will not have a cookie cutter approach but will design adaptations to programming.

For instance, if it's no longer a good idea for whatever reason—corruption or something else—to channel money through the government, they would be able refocus and rechannel it through local NGOs, Canadian or other international NGOs, or the UN to continue supporting the people of that country, rather than punishing them because we don't want to support their government.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I've heard the complaint made for a while that one problem with our international development program is that we're constantly chasing the emergencies. You've talked about the trendy cause, or the cause of the day, the month, or the year.

How do we move away from that? How do we start taking a longer-term approach? Is there anything in terms of design that you can think of as a recommendation?

[Prof. Stephen Brown]

Focus on poverty and political interference.

There were so many decisions made in the past that went into the minister's office, sat there for a year, and then came out changed. For instance, there were recommendations for funding of NGOs. Everybody who knew about the topic and who had studied it—all the people from CIDA and DFAIT, as it was then—said, “This is a great project”. It went to the minister's office. The minister signed off on it and then later inserted a “not”, reversing that decision.

That kind of political interference harms our aid effectiveness, because decisions are being made for political reasons and not for the good that these programs can actually do. Whether it's political preferences, security considerations, or perhaps wanting to favour NGOs from your riding or your home region or something like that, these should not be part of the decision-making process.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Professor Audet, would you comment?

[Prof. François Audet]

To your two questions, if you asked me if Canadian aid is effective, I would say yes. I think the results of our projects are quite good in general.

However, we have to be realistic as to what aid can really do in any country around the world. It's nothing in comparison to the global economy, and even to the economy of one country, especially for a country like Canada. We have to be careful when we are asking ourselves as a country, as government, whether we are effective, and against what standard, exactly? What are the criteria or the management issues there?

The second thing, and this is clearly an issue all over Canada, is the problem of chasing emergencies. Every country is like that. I think the best way to change that or to modify the pattern of behaviour is the education of the public.

Political interference comes with pressure from the public. If the public understands better what is happening outside our borders, we will be better informed as a society. There will probably be less pressure for a minister or a government to take a decision only because they face microphones every morning, with the media asking what's happening with this earthquake or that emergency.

The better educated the public is about international issues, the better we will be as a country. We had an NGO program ten years ago on public awareness. NGOs in Canada had the mandate to educate the population about international poverty issues, and it has been cut. I think one good investment for our effectiveness is certainly to educate the public in general.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

I'm going to move to the next questioner.

I'm going to start the second round, and Mr. Miller is going to split his time with Mr. Saini.

Mr. Miller.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their input.

Mr. Munro, I sense a considerable amount of frustration on your end, and it's clearly justified. As you said, eliminating extreme poverty should be the focus. I was particularly struck by Mr. Brown's remarks and his frustration with the review process. To that, I would say, give it a chance. Our mandate has only just begun, but there is a genuine desire to take action, as well as a significant amount of consultation taking place, particularly within this committee.

I heard a number of practical suggestions. You'll have to forgive me on that front; my father was an academic and I get very frustrated when people don't propose practical solutions to a problem. I've always had that mentality. Please don't take offence because of my bias, but I heard you talk about decentralization and specialization. You touched on increasing funding for eradicating extreme poverty and giving decentralized diplomatic channels an opportunity to get involved. It may also be a good idea to consider funding for diplomats, given that they have an intimate knowledge of the issues on the ground.

Could you elaborate on concrete decisions and measures that could be implemented straightaway or perhaps after a short period of reflection?

You talked about possibly wanting to bask in the glory of donating money. That said, are there other countries doing a better job than we are? Is handing over the money and just letting them do their thing the way to go?

[Prof. Lauchlan Munro]

As Mr. Audet said, I think we need to be realistic about the impact that the donor country can have and the impact that assistance, in general, can have. Even for those countries that depend the most on official development assistance, it likely represents only 10% of their GDP. Let's be realistic about what assistance can and cannot do.

In addition, I think that where we need to start, in terms of making reforms and cleaning things up, is in our own backyard. Let's do things right. As a G7 country, a member of the OECD, and so forth, we carry a certain amount of sway. We should continue to exercise our influence on international standards. But, if we truly want to improve Canada's aid effectiveness, the way to do that is through measures like the ones my colleague, Stephen Brown, suggested, in other words, by decentralizing and significantly building expertise in regions and theme-based areas of action.

As I mentioned a few moments ago, some administrative reforms need to happen in both the public service and foreign service. That includes putting an end to the practice of rotating workers so frequently. When I worked for UNICEF, during my five years in Zimbabwe, I dealt with three different Canadian counterparts. In Zimbabwe, as in many other countries, it takes a year and a half to get adapted, have people know who you are, and really get a handle on the local situation. Someone does well for a year and, then, gets ready to leave after three. Frankly, it makes no sense. The worker rotation system has to change.

The last thing I would say is that we need to revisit some of the practices in place across the public service. That's an observation that applies not only to the official development assistance program, but also to all programs across the entire public service. I think the results-based management approach taken by the Canadian government for the past 20 or so years hasn't always been suitable for international development projects or a great many Canadian projects. It's a great tool when building a bridge or an airport. It's very effective for projects of that nature. But when you're dealing with a project to promote stronger governance, women's rights, and so forth in other countries, this approach makes things significantly harder. Once again, as I said earlier, it forces government workers to become increasingly creative in their proposals and reports, and that's not necessarily a good thing, in my opinion.

[Dr. Stephen Brown]

I think there's a growing problem, and it has to do with the focus the government has placed on accountability. People have to be able to say where every single dollar or cent was spent. Development is an area with considerable uncertainty and not just in fragile states. It entails risks, so failures are inevitable. The goal, however, should be to learn from those failures, to admit to them, to study them, and to speak frankly about them. That information shouldn't be confined to a secret report that is kept out of the public domain. We should follow the lead of organizations like DFID in the UK, which subjects its programs to scrutiny through a sort of self-review and opens the door to discussion. It acknowledges its failures and tries to learn from them.

My sense is that, in Canada, there is a fear of admitting that money was wasted. The government goes to great lengths to tout the success of a project or hide the results when it turns out to be a failure. I think this focus on the “flavour of the month” forces public servants to misrepresent the reality somewhat or to reframe what they want to do. For example, if the project seeks to build a school in a certain part of Kenya, they will highlight the fact that the region is home to a major extractive sector in order to draw the attention of a former minister who placed a lot of importance on such considerations.

Even before CIDA merged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, I believe it was The Globe and Mail that revealed the existence of a report on priority countries. An analysis had been done to determine why we were active in those countries and whether that involvement should continue. A summary had been prepared for each country. In some cases, a good chunk of the text had been blacked out because the information only became available in response to an access to information request. It was not public information. But when the reasons cited for Canada's involvement in the country were not blacked out, in most cases, they revolved around our commercial interests. And that was even before the merger.

Personally, I worry that the merger will make that kind of approach easier. One of the reasons the government gave for the merger was policy consistency. That may sound like a very good thing, but if it really means consistency across policies that favour Canada's commercial interests, then development is going to suffer. That is more or less where the line has been drawn in terms of the current consultation process, and that may also be the case as regards the committee's mandate. You are focusing on development assistance without discussing other sectors or other Canadian government institutions that have an impact on development.

Consider, for instance, the priorities announced last week as part of the consultations. Women's rights, human rights, and peace and security were among those priorities. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we are focusing on these issues when we have decided to sell weapons to the government of Saudi Arabia, a country that violates both women's and human rights. We are talking about one of the worst authoritarian regimes in the world.

Not only is it very important to think about what development assistance can do, but it's also essential to look beyond that, at the bigger picture, and take into account other areas of activity that Global Affairs Canada and even other departments are engaged in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, I'll have to wrap it up here.

This has been very interesting. I think if we had a couple more hours, we could probably sit here for a while to talk about it. It's been refreshing to hear the three of you speak about the issues relating to this study.

I'll let everyone know that we are just in the process of having a discussion about extending the discussion and the study. Simply put, we've found that the time we've allocated will not do justice to this study, so we'll increase the time that we will have.

I want to admit, Mr. Brown and the rest of you, that I'm one of those who think these themes are all just basically laid out so that you can fit any country into them, so it's not as important, at least to me as the chair, as it might be to some.

Take, for example, securing the future of children and youth. I could put every country in the world into that category. I don't think that's the issue so much as the countries and how we would develop a strategy to get some real results on the ground. I think you've helped us with that this afternoon and this evening, and I very much appreciate that.

Thank you very much for coming. We hope we can do this again sometime.

Colleagues, I will now suspend the meeting while we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]