Foreign Affairs Committee on May 19th, 2016

[Dr. Philip Oxhorn, Professor of Political Science, Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University, As an Individual]

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

The first thing I want to say is that obviously priorities have to be set. There are more needs than there is money to fund them, so the question is what the criteria are for setting priorities.

The three alternatives are geographic, Canadian expertise, and Canadian security and economic interests. I think what's important and what I want to emphasize is the need to find a balance.

For me, the place to start is with Canadian expertise. What can Canadians do well? I think it's important to be branded in that way, not as friends, not as good people or whatever, but in terms of expertise and success.

After that I think it's important to include geographic considerations. It's important because we can focus on countries in most need, such as the poorest countries in Africa, but also those in which Canada has established relationships; those, for example, in the English-speaking Caribbean and other areas linked with the Commonwealth.

Finally, and I think least important from my point of view, it's security and economic interests. The reason I put them at the end is not to say that they're unimportant, because obviously they are and they can't be ignored, but that Canada needs to protect its good image. If Canadian aid is seen as being too self-serving, too instrumentalist or opportunistic, it's going to undercut the value of that aid and Canada's position in the world of donor countries.

There is an almost infinite number of possible areas in which Canada has expertise that is relevant. I think one important area to start with is governance. Under governance I would include corporate social responsibility, trying to set up a framework that will allow corporations to play a more important, more positive role in contributing to sustainable development.

In particular, given Canada's economy, I think it's important to recognize the role that the extractives play and the importance of establishing better norms for corporate social responsibility in that area. It's also important to remember that we use “corporate social responsibility”—or I do—loosely. What I'm really talking about is the role that the private sector needs to play in promoting development. Canadian bilateral aid can play a big role in facilitating it. Why does the private sector need to play a role? That's where jobs are. If you don't have productive, resource-generating enterprises, you're not going to have anything that's sustainable, much less development.

The next area I would include under governance is courts and policing. These are areas in which Canada does quite well. If you look at all of the statistics, its court system and its policing system are as good as you're going to find anywhere. And yet these are often very important needs in many developing countries. Canada has a long history of helping countries develop their own court systems and their own policing systems, and that should be emphasized more and more.

I think, too, that something that's under-appreciated about Canada is that Canada does a very good job of maintaining a real welfare state with really useful, beneficial social policies at the same time as it is able to maintain relatively stable fiscal and monetary policies. Don't forget 2008. Canada did quite well during 2008, and unlike other countries, including the neighbour to the south, it has maintained a level of public services that I think is exemplary.

These are the kinds of lessons that need to be translated and adapted to the experiences of many developing countries, including countries such as Brazil, such as Venezuela, that are relatively high- or middle-income countries, yet are going through massive crises because of poor policy-making.

Under governance I would also include managing an economy—in this case, Canada's—that's increasingly dependent on the extractive sector. There are plenty of lessons to be learned that can be used as best practices and can be adapted to help developing countries deal with their own challenges.

A second general area, after governance, would involve maternal, newborn, and child health. That's really important. It was started under the previous government. I think it's something that we need to continue, but with two important changes. The first change is that it needs to take a gender perspective, and by that I mean simply treating women as women, situating them within societies dominated by men. In other words, we don't want to look at women and maternal health as a way of achieving other goals. We want to look at it as a goal in and of itself.

The reason for that is very simple. Not only does it contribute to more just societies, but it also contributes to achieving other benefits that will become sustainable in the future. We're talking about children, child care, all sorts of things that flow from societies that are more just and more equal.

The third and last one, which I'll mention just briefly, is food security. This is something Canada has particular expertise in for a number of reasons, including the fact that it has a vast agricultural sector. Also, through IDRC administrative projects it has done a lot already in food security. I've been involved in several of those projects, and they definitely need to be continued.

I think it's also important to understand these areas of expertise Canada enjoys all directly contribute to achieving the SDGs, the sustainable development goals. When you have the huge number of challenges entailed in meeting the SDGs, they ultimately come down to good governance; to the rule of law, policing, and good courts; and to maintaining a welfare state and social policies that correspond to the level of economic development and needs of the people in the countries we're talking about, but also more just and equal societies coming from the perspective of dealing with gender.

If you look at it in that sense, it's something that also applies in a greater or lesser degree to low-income and middle-income countries. In particular, middle-income countries are not doing well on basic governance issues, as we see in Latin America, in South Africa, and in other middle-income countries. This is an area where Canada's expertise can also go far in adapting to the needs and expectations of the people Canada is trying to help and working with their civil society organizations, as well as their governance.

I thought I would keep my comments relatively brief to allow more time for questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much. We appreciate that.

I'll go to Eva Busza from Vancouver, British Columbia, where I wish I was.

Go ahead, Eva.

[Eva Busza, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada]

Hello, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee and colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and to take part in this important discussion.

My name is Eva Busza and I am the vice-president of research and programs at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

The foundation was established by an act of Parliament in 1984 to help Canadians engage with Asia. The bulk of our work does not fall under the rubric of development assistance, rather we operate at the cusp of trade, innovation, development, and geopolitics. Consequently, the perspective I bring may be a little different from those who have spoken from the international development community. I will also draw on my prior personal experience, which includes 15 years as a development practitioner, focusing on security sector reform, conflict and disaster programming, and fragile state assistance, including four years working as the director of strategic planning, focusing on global threats, for the current UN Secretary-General.

As you've seen, your question of how to select countries of focus has given rise to much larger reflections on what Canada needs to do both internally and externally to enhance its aid effectiveness, adapt to a changing world, and help the poorest and most vulnerable.

Let me begin by directly addressing your questions.

Should Canada concentrate its bilateral development assistance in a small number of countries and on select sectors?

First, let's remember that one-third of Canada's development assistance is bilateral, and 90% of that assistance goes to countries of focus. The remaining two-thirds is not subject to the countries-of-focus model. My first caution is that the committee needs to look beyond bilateral assistance at the entire package. Is a one-third/two-thirds split the right one? While not subject to the countries-of-focus model, is there a de facto country allocation in the remaining two-thirds, and how is this coordinated with our bilateral aid? Are programs adequately addressing the myriad of global and regional challenges that not only affect the most vulnerable today, but are likely to drive those who have escaped extreme poverty back down into the bottom tiers? Are climate change, health epidemics, transnational crimes, and natural disasters getting sufficient attention from our assistance? My sense is that we need to give more priority to the latter, but the decision needs to be based on a robust program analysis, which I assume will be an input provided to you by Global Affairs Canada.

I would further urge you to conduct your analysis by looking at what mechanisms and development support is being provided by government departments and agencies other than Global Affairs Canada internationally, for example, by Finance; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; the Public Health Agency; Environment and Climate Change; Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the Royal Mounted Police; and the Department of National Defence. Our development policy needs to be shaped based on a whole-of-government approach, and that starts with a whole-of-government mapping.

In principle, given Canada's limited resources, I agree with prior witnesses who have argued that our support across the board should be focused on a limited number of select sectors in a few countries, but that we balance this with giving due attention to regional or global interventions. The regional context simply can't be ignored, given that health epidemics, droughts, conflicts, crime, and financial flows don't tend to respect borders.

Why should we focus?

Because you have more chance of being effective in your programming if you focus, for all the reasons D.G. Kent outlined in her opening testimony. That being said, as other witnesses have emphasized, mere focus on geography or on sector is no guarantee of increased effectiveness.

Other measures need to be taken. Some of these include, first, identifying what we are good at, and cross-referencing that with what types of interventions seem to have maximum impact, and what sectors are under-invested in by the international community.

Second, we need to make a distinction between three contexts: stable countries with pockets of highly vulnerable or impoverished populations—this could be LDCs or middle-income countries where, as the World Bank data indicates, 70% of the most poor and vulnerable reside—fragile states, and humanitarian emergencies. The programming that is most likely to be effective in these different types of situations not only differ, but so do the delivery mechanisms and the emphasis and approach taken to capacity building.

Third, we need to align our proposed intervention with the development priorities of the countries and regions in question. Do they want the type of assistance we are able to provide? Buy-in at the national level is ideal, but sometimes, particularly in fragile states, it may be sufficient to have support at the sub-national level. Regardless, buy-in from a key stakeholder who can affect change is central.

You asked about international agreements and initiatives, and should they help us identify some of these principles.

There are a number of agreements that provide guidelines and principles for development assistance. Some of the more important include the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Accra Agenda for Action, the Busan Principles, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Are they perfect? No, but they do encapsulate the knowledge countries around the world have gained about what is most likely to advance poverty reduction and development. Moreover they serve as an ordering and coordinating mechanism, which is essential, given the vast array of development actors out there.

Regarding your question on the effectiveness of a country-of-focus model, I've already suggested that the country-of-focus model should not be driving development decisions. An assistance framework that is designed to focus on vulnerable and poor populations, as opposed to states, and that allows for tiered interventions, which prioritize its programming for different types of development situations, is the way to go. For example, in fragile states or regions, conflict prevention, transitional justice and reconciliation, and basic livelihood programs coordinated with support provided in the security arena, are likely to be most effective.

I would like to end with some forward-looking recommendations.

Today Canada has the opportunity to position itself, once again, as an innovator in development assistance and as a valued international partner. How do we do this? First, on the coordination side, as many more actors get involved in poverty reduction, and as ODA stays relatively flat, efficiency of aid delivery becomes even more important and more difficult. Two of the things that are often the hardest to fund are coordinators and coordinating systems. They're just not that sexy. As a practitioner, you come across so many incidents of waste due to duplication or badly targeted resources. Canada could be of tremendous value by providing both human resources and supporting coordinating technologies and information systems.

Second, with our emphasis on being an innovation nation, we need to bring our science and technology policy and our trade policy closer to our development policy and be a leader in developing and applying ICT and technology to aid delivery and monitoring. Some examples include applying big data collection and analytics to disaster response and coordination, supporting mobile phone applications for health diagnostics or water and sanitation access, using drones to provide medical and food supplies to the most vulnerable and hard to reach populations, and supporting the revolution in fintech by allowing the poorest and most vulnerable easy access to microfinance and basic services.

Third, we should aim to be a leader in fostering market approaches to development. We are already doing this to a degree by supporting social entrepreneurs, but there is so much more we can do in this area.

Finally, we could signal our commitment to this new role by hosting an international innovation and development summit, and partnering with key donors, foundations, and the private sector.

Thank you for the time you have allowed me. I will be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Ms. Busza.

We'll now go to Mr. McArthur from the Brookings Institute.

[John McArthur, Professor, Brookings Institute, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, thank you for your warm welcome.

I am sorry that I can't be there with you today in Ottawa, but I am very pleased to take part by video conference.

I thought I would talk today about four categories of issues, appreciating the specific questions that the committee is dealing with. I thought I might help zoom in a little on some of these global issues, first, talking about the scope of the challenge; second, talking about a logic to guide the committee's thinking about achieving these global goals that have been discussed; third, touching briefly on the assessments that have taken place of Canada's bilateral programs; and fourth, presenting some recommendations for the group's consideration.

Starting with the challenge, I think it's very important to recognize, as we look at these very particular and important specific questions, the nature of what we're looking at in the global economy. This is a large, complex, highly interconnected, and rapidly shifting $85-trillion global economy, roughly speaking.

The sustainable development goals are the world's agreed framework for tackling the common economic, social, and environmental challenges through to 2030 in that context. For Canada, I would argue that this implies a focus on two key dimensions at every step. The first is scale; the second is specificity of outcomes.

At the global level, it implies that Canada needs to develop a very clear logic for defining and assessing its international responsibilities of scaled challenges with specificity. At the national domestic level it means that we as a society need a clear strategy for ensuring that every province, territory, and municipality is empowered to innovate and benchmark its way towards achieving these agreed goals.

That said, I would stress that one of the most fundamental shifts under way in global society is that the so-called developing countries are now responsible for a majority of the world's annual economic expansion. This is, roughly speaking, unprecedented in the modern era, and it is a structural shift. In fact, it's such a shift that I would argue that the distinction between developed and developing countries is evaporating over time, and in some cases very quickly.

To illustrate the point, consider the question of whether China is a developed or a developing country. That question itself doesn't make a lot of sense. China is of course not subject to such false dichotomies.

Similarly, is the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank last year a development economics story; is it a geopolitical story in response to the failures of the Bretton Woods institutions, perceived or otherwise—the World Bank and so forth—or is it an instrument for potentially promoting low-carbon energy systems in the world's most populous region? The answer is “all of the above” on issues each of which is of global importance.

That matters, because even the term “international development”, I would argue, is outdated. I don't like to use it anymore, as an economist who focuses on these issues day to day. I believe that the term “international development” as a term conjures up 1970s-era concepts of charity for poor countries, the so-called folkfest of international politics, when what we're really looking at is issues of centre stage in global society.

We also need an expanded mindset for thinking about who in Canada is even responsible for asking and answering these questions. For example, we've lived through the Ebola crisis; we have avian flu; we have SARS. Health Canada has a crucial role to play in preventing global disease outbreaks. Environment and Climate Change Canada has a crucial role to play in incentives and regulations for a low-carbon economy. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada has a crucial role to play in ensuring that Canada meets its pledge to ensure, for the SDGs, that no one is left behind. And as has been mentioned, I would argue Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada has a crucial role to play in advancing the economic and social and environmental innovations that would both achieve the SDGs and compete in the global economy.

This is a new way of thinking about the problems in front of us, and having been very involved with the global efforts on the millennium development goals it's hard to underscore the extent to which a new mindset is needed to tackle the sustainable development goals.

Let me turn to the second point of targeting.

In thinking about the scale and specificity of the SDGs, through our own recent workings on a project we called Ending Rural Hunger, we found that most of the sustainable development goals can be benchmarked against three critical dimensions: needs, policies, and resources per person. If one considers the second goal for hunger, for example, you can define needs against indicators of undernourishment, malnutrition, smallholder productivity, food system resilience, and so forth.

If you look at SDG 3 for health, you can look at the needs based on indicators of child survival, neonatal survival, maternal mortality, and so forth. But then you have to look at the policies within that sector in each country of interest. On the hunger goal, you could look at market and nutrition policies; you could look at prioritization, politically, of agriculture. On health goals, you could look at health system policy metrics across each country.

Then, the third and final link in the chain is to assess resources and to see how much is going per person to each issue. That matters because if you add up the domestic, the international, the public, the private, in the best case, Canada's efforts are focused on its priorities, on countries with high needs, terrific policies, and low resources, so it gets the most bang for its buck. In the worst case, Canada's efforts go towards places with very low needs, terrible policies, and lots of resources already on the problem.

Much of the world is of course in between those two extremes, so it's a matter of being honest in benchmarking; which of the cases where policy improvements on appropriate benchmarks will make a difference, and which are the ones where resources can help achieve the desired outcomes. And each issue will have its own blend of that little strategic triangle.

Now, let me just shift to Canada's bilateral programs. At Brookings and the Center for Global Development, there are published reports on so-called quota quality of official development assistance. This is publicly available.

Canada ranks top in the world for its transparency and learning, based on the detailed descriptions of its projects. It's more in the middle of the pack on issues of efficiency and supporting developing country institutions, whereas it ranks actually quite low on reducing burdens on developing countries, even in the countries of focus. It's based on things like small, medium project size; uncoordinated missions; these things that put strong burdens on the developing countries.

When we looked at the specific priority recently of food and nutrition security, we saw Canada actually ranks quite well, fifth out the donor countries on implementation quality of its aid policies; more middle of the pack on aid targeting towards the countries with high needs and good policies. It ranks extremely well, first, on reported gender sensitivity in its aid policies in this realm.

You're actually towards the back on issues of climate, and its emphasis on food and nutrition security. But crucially, on the very complementary agenda of trade policy, Canada ranks 28th of 29 countries based on its non-tariff barriers, and even on protection for biofuels, which in effect makes it harder for developing countries on the market side.

All of these questions need dimensions. And I'm happy to share all these references and the follow-up.

Let me share some quick recommendations. I have eight quick ones.

On the focus countries, first, there need to be adequate resources to have adequate influence per country. That means that Canada has to be in the top three or four in each country in order to actually be focused on the recipient side.

Second, there needs to be coherence with other donors. If Canada picks country A over complementary country B, another country needs to support country B, and not country A, in order to get the joint outcomes we're all looking for.

Third, if we shift to general sectoral priorities, I would flag a few things that I would offer as global frontier issues where Canada is uniquely positioned to make a big contribution.

One is girls' secondary education. This is a major global gap right now. It is some of the lowest-hanging fruit in the world to scale up. To give a commitment to women and girls requires, if nothing else, a major scale-up of investment for girls' secondary education.

My fourth recommendation is to link more explicitly agriculture and food nutrition security to the end of extreme poverty. This is the sector with the most direct effect on ending extreme poverty, a point that in my view has been under-leveraged.

The fifth recommendation is to support experimentation around technology and basic income. We have advances around unconditional cash transfers, so-called...something that has also of course been pioneered in Ontario now and has been used after the Fort McMurray fire. We now have huge evidence that unconditional cash transfers are a vital part of the tool kit to end extreme poverty. This could be piloted at scale throughout Canada's focus countries around the world to really understand what leadership looks like.

On a related sixth note, I would say that Canada needs to build its own applied policy research capacities in its local universities, in its think tanks, and indeed in Global Affairs Canada, in order to contribute more effectively to the global policy conversations in a manner that connects directly our national and international conversations.

I have two final points on financing. I just want to flag that there's a big distinction to be made between climate finance and the new commitments coming out of Paris and official development assistance. Roughly speaking, climate finance for mitigation should not be included in official development assistance, whereas adaptation is fair game to be included.

The final final point I would add is that I believe we need a clear logic and strategy for our official development assistance and the way it links to both private and other forms of financing.

There is no compelling rationale that I'm aware of that has been put forward for why we invest at the levels we do today. There has been a debate over the 0.7% target. I'm happy to share my views on how one could get there on a reasonable 10- to 15-year time horizon, but there has been no argument on why we're at 0.24% or 0.28% or 0.3% or whatever the specific number is, and I believe it has to be understood at a public level as a matter of grand strategy for the country's role in the world. It affects everything from how we choose how many priorities to take on to how big a player we are within those priorities, and it requires both a private sector conversation and a public sector conversation. In my own work, I'm seeing the countries that have done this successfully across sectors and have come up with robust long-term strategies to guide beyond any particular political cycle, so that this is seen as a truly strategic investment of the country in the world.

Thank you. I'll stop there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. McArthur.

With the short time we have, we'll go straight to Mr. Kent.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Chair. In the interest of getting around the table, I'll put just one question. It's a big question, but it's also fairly narrowly focused.

Thanks to all of you for your testimony. As we conduct this study on countries of focus, we know what other comparable developed nations have been doing. We know that the United Kingdom, which is the first of the G20 countries to hit the 0.7% target, in 2011 cut 16 countries from its bilateral aid list to a list of 28, still a fairly large number. Denmark last year reduced the number of its priority countries from 21 to 14, and Australia's top 10 priority bilateral aid-receiving countries are all regional, in the Indo-Pacific region.

Now, we do it in the knowledge that only eight countries have been consistently included on Canada's list of countries of focus since 2002, and aside from Afghanistan, with the war and development assistance that was attached to foreign policy, and Haiti, with the disaster recovery some of the same.

I'm wondering whether each of you could address the benefits of reducing from 25—we only recently increased from 20—to numbers closer to those of our other developed nations? What numbers would you recommend to achieve bigger bang for the buck or greater focus in the countries of focus?

[Dr. Philip Oxhorn]

What I would do is, again, focus on expertise, because that solves the problem of the number of countries. No matter how many countries are on the list, there will be people arguing that more countries or different countries should be on the list. You don't need the aggravation. What you need is to have something to sell.

Say that Canada specialized in innovative mechanisms for food security. Well, it's not going to work for every country in the world, and then the decisions come down to the quality of the project. They also come down to the quality of the relationship. Continued aid to Haiti is a no-brainer because of the relationship that goes back so many decades.

If you focus on what Canada does well and limit the number of themes—because you can't do everything, and Canada doesn't do everything well—then the number of countries solves itself in a way that I think is more satisfactory: it's a quality issue, rather than a number that is always going to be arbitrary, whether it's 30, 40, 50, or 60. If Canada had the same relative budget as DFID, we could fund more countries.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Ms. Busza.

[Eva Busza]

I would agree with Philip. I'd also go back to a comment John made, which is that if we are going to be in a country, we should be looking at being one of the top two or three donors in order to be making an impact, but I think it is dangerous to start a priori with a number and then try to retrofit our assistance that way.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Just following on that answer, let me say that I'm sure the other countries—the U.K., for example in doing its cut, and Denmark—came to that reduction in numbers by following your suggestion of prioritizing, or so I suspect.

Mr. McArthur?

[John McArthur]

I would only amplify the comments that have been made. I think it's a function of how many resources there are to spread. If Canada had triple the budget, it would be able to prioritize and focus on its outcomes. Everything in my view should be outcome-focused. That then can overlap with countries of different sizes.

There is a strong bias against large countries, for example, systematically, because $100 million feels to one country the same as $100 million does to another country, even if one has 10 times the population of the other. One thus has to think about where the resource is being spread, what the most effective use of the resource is, and how the spreading of it fits with where resources are needed.

If the U.K. decides to take on some country that is of no strategic interest to Canada, my first question would be whether Canada needs to be there, then, as a bilateral partner, because maybe someone else is already doing the work and we have a better comparative advantage somewhere else.

I think there always has to be a triangulation among factors.

The other thing I would say, to build on Philip's point, is that one of the key motivations for bilateral programming is to make sure that there's adequate and proper and strong Canadian expertise in-house. Whereas financing multilateral programs often means outsourcing expertise, in effect—which is a strong thing to do, in many cases—there's a need, if we care about food and nutrition security, to make really sure that our expertise isn't just in food and nutritional security; it might be in certain elements of food and nutrition security in which Canada has an incredibly strong comparative advantage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Mr. Saini.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, all of you, for being here today.

One question is for you specifically, Mr. McArthur. It concerns something you wrote about a year ago.

You introduced the term “global sustainable development”. Out of that comment you said that the transition for Canada should be from Canada's role in the world to Canadians' role in the world; you said that all stakeholders should be part of an ecosystem, and you cited the examples of the Nordic countries and England; and you said that this would be something that would increase our influence and would also protect our national interest.

Can you provide some commentary—because I find the idea very intriguing—on how we should develop this ecosystem? I know it's not specific, but in a more general way, how do we develop the ecosystem here in Canada, and how do you think that will make us more influential and protect our national interest?

[John McArthur]

First, thank you. I'm delighted that someone has read our report. That's terrific. More specifically, I think the notion of Canadians' engagement is part of understanding what a technocrat might call the “disintermediation of the world”. When the United Nations was launched, it was $50 for a three-minute phone call between London and New York. Now anyone in the world can get on Skype for free and talk with anyone. This is not just about how governments connect, this is about how societies connect. Our businesses, our universities, and all the aspects of multilateralism that are global co-operation are very far beyond government.

I would even say in the Canadian context that when we think about the role of business in the world, which is crucial—that is the global economy—it's regulated at the provincial level. Our stock exchanges and our markets are regulated at the provincial level. That means on that issue alone, our provincial governments are major global players for, as an example, our extractives industry. We're not used to thinking of provincial governments as global players, but there's no question that they are. Our provincial governments are also the primary funders of our universities. All the students and all the faculty, all the incentives of what people learn, what they teach, and what they research, are fundamentally driven by these very local budgeting and policy questions. Then, of course, we have the national research funding bodies, like SSHRC and NSERC and the IDRC, which are part of this too.

The bottom line is that I have been in many meetings in the world. One with a Swedish coalition was most profoundly moving to me. It was at a World Economic Forum session, and it was the most sophisticated commentary I could remember hearing on global sustainable development challenges. I looked around the room and saw that it was the CEO of Ericsson, the CEO of Volvo, the CEO of the Swedish pension plan, and the head of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the scientists. I realized that this was a conversation that had grown over 10 years because the government was working with the business leadership and the scientific leadership at every step to say, “How do we build our society's engagement for the world? Because this is in everyone's interest.”

This is why I stress so strongly that in Canada, I believe, we need to be thinking about a 10-year horizon for most of these questions. One doesn't change overnight the funding incentives for our universities. One doesn't build overnight our corporate sector's global engagement where it doesn't exist adequately. This is about conversations, this is about joint problem-solving, and in some cases it's about regulation. Most of the time, however, it's about the role of actors engaging, in a crucial global engagement manner, in a way that's additive to everything we're used to talking about. It's not a substitute, it's an addition. That's how I think we can actually make sure we're leading on all these questions where so much of the world, I can guarantee you, wants Canada to be leading.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Aubin, please.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank all the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

Our study essentially looks at countries of focus. Very simply, it is fairly easy to understand the countries of focus approach, which probably affords us economies of scale in administration and so we can invest more in our programs and less in administration. I would say that the past experience of our provincial and federal governments has very clearly shown that this is not always the result. Are any of you aware of or have any of you read a study showing the effectiveness of the countries of focus approach?

[Dr. Philip Oxhorn]

I don't know of any particular study, but I think there are two things we need to keep in mind.

First of all, what is it we want out of focuses? We want to be able to say that this is what Canada's done. But what Canada does, what any aid program does, by definition is local development. You're not going to change a big or small country by any contribution from aid, but you're going to make people's lives better and you're going to make court cases better. I'm saying that because it's the projects: that's the PR and that's the good message. Whether it's big or small, it doesn't matter; it's the effectiveness at that level.

Second, with due respect, I think the analogy on scale is misplaced. Projects are projects, right? If Canada has a lot more going on in a country, that doesn't necessarily guarantee that there will be coordination or economies of scale simply because there will just be more projects. The economies of scale are writ large and go beyond any particular project. I think it's more important to focus on the impact, and that's why I emphasize expertise: what Canada can do well. It will solve a lot of the problems that need to be addressed by focusing on specific countries but in a more objective and more effective way. In the end, that will be the best way to image Canada in the world.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

Would anyone like to add anything?

[Eva Busza]

I could just add that I also am not aware of any study that has advocated countries of focus as the sole criterion. Most studies I've seen say that one should focus one's efforts, and that scattering resources is problematic, but that focusing on a particular country is not sufficient, and there are many other criteria and measures that need to be taken. In our testimony, we've addressed some of those other conditions that make focusing more effective.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. McArthur, I am listening.

[John McArthur]

I would just add that I'm not familiar with any specifics either, but I think there are a lot of criteria that are consistent with the ambitions of focusing. There are a lot of assessments on, let's say, the quality of the projects within particular countries, to make sure that they are of high quality. Again, as we said, if you have three times the budget, you can do three times the number of countries at the same level per country, but the question is what you do in each place and what's the size, the scale of the footprint, that the country commits to taking on as a global responsibility.

We can have an offline discussion regarding the debates about scale, but I would just say I don't know a single developing-country finance minister who wants more small projects unless it's as a test. I think that, roughly speaking, they want to minimize the administrative burden. They want to have transparency in what they're doing—on both sides—and it's a matter of making sure there is a coordinated approach in which the approach of the external partners matches the strategy of the domestic partners, and ultimately the problem they're trying to solve, in some cases, might involve tweaking a lever on the regulatory side. In another case, it might be a matter of how many people have access to essential medicines, because people are dying for want of a pill. Each problem has its own implications with regard to how well we're doing in helping to solve it.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. McArthur. That leads to my second question, which might echo the statements to the effect that Canada should be able to go to the countries it wishes to help with its broad expertise.

Haven't we reached the point where we should give up bilateral assistance and seek instead to coordinate multilateral aid programs, in order to avoid duplication in the countries we wish to help? Can Canada play this coordinating role, which would promote multilateral aid?

The question is open to any of you. First come, first served.

[Philip Oxhorn]

I think there is a role for both. Canada, as you know, makes a large contribution to the multilaterals. I don't know if its role in the multilateral system corresponds to the dimensions of this contribution, and that's a more difficult question to answer. If its influence isn't commensurate with its investment, then it's a more difficult problem to solve.

Bilateral does have real advantages. The advantages are in the concrete results. We shouldn't confuse amount spent with effectiveness. I wasn't involved, but I came across a very unique project in Ghana, which was designed to improve the quality of the civil service. It was led by a man named Scott Serson, who some of you may know. It basically cost nothing, a couple of hundred thousand dollars, maybe a million dollars, but if it's successful, it has changed the game. That's how you measure things.

There are other examples in which you have effectiveness that's almost independent of the cost, and it's really part of the design of the project. If Canada can play a better role in coordinating multilaterals, that's great, but I don't think you want to abandon everything. I think you want to keep that division between multilateral and bilateral, because they serve different interests that Canada has.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

What is your opinion, Ms. Busza?