Foreign Affairs committee  May I just say one quick thing? I apologize for not having my notes out in advance. Perhaps through the clerk, if that's the best way, I can send something to follow up and you can all have that.

Foreign Affairs committee  Great. That seems perfectly fair.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a great question. Just to add a personal angle to this, when I was 19 years old I lived and worked in east Africa, in Tanzania. Every day I would get on a minibus and go to work, and we would pass through two or three police roadblocks. Each day, at each of those instances, the driver would have to pay off a little bit of money to the police officer in order to be able to pass through.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think there are different ways of doing what we call a “pay for performance” style of aid, results-based. I'm sure many of you are aware of or have met with members of the GAVI Alliance, which is around vaccines and ensuring that.... This is a similar approach in some respects.

Foreign Affairs committee  In a word, yes, I would agree. I think that cash-on-delivery aid is part of a greater focus on results. That being said, the idea in terms of how other aid models work is not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, because there are other things, and democratic development might be one of them, where this model is not suitable.

Foreign Affairs committee  Certainly.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. It's true that we have spent a great deal of time looking at this issue—in fact, the last two years. As a little bit of context, this is something that as an idea has been developed over the last four years. It originated from some of the top minds on development issues, from something called the Center for Global Development, which is a very interesting think tank in Washington, D.C.

Foreign Affairs committee  You hold us accountable.

Foreign Affairs committee  You should continue to. We have a responsibility to be accountable. We cannot do it all. We don't claim to be able to do it all. It's absolutely vital and core to Canada's development strategy that we engage governments and other large stakeholders in the development scene. We have mechanisms built into the cash-on-delivery model that would allow us to maintain transparency, even if you're not engaging directly with a Canadian NGO.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would say, first and foremost, that all of us as Canadians, and I'm sure the folks from Coca-Cola and others from non-governmental organizations as well, have a shared common interest: we want people's lives to be improved upon. I think there is an absolutely vital intersection there between the public sector and ensuring that there are responsible governments that have accountability to their citizens so there is a functioning democratic system, and also so that at the end of the day people have livelihoods to be able to live the lives they want to live and to be able to get themselves out of poverty.

Foreign Affairs committee  My ego's bruised, but....

Foreign Affairs committee  It's a good question. First, it's not, in our organizational view, the be-all and end-all. The work we continue to operate is in fact not an illustration of this model. We are not engaging in this model, because we are, quite frankly, a different kind of organization, and this is something in which the primary actors involved, at least at the first point, are governments.

Foreign Affairs committee  If it's okay, Mr. Van Kesteren, I'll give another example, something that is burgeoning for our organization in Ghana. For those who don't know the country of Ghana, it is coming out of the gates strongly right now. In fact, it's sort of entering into middle-income status. They've discovered oil in the last few years, and they have been drilling and finding ways—they've been partnering with the Norwegian government—to ensure they're going to use those revenues that are generated in responsible long-term ways.

Foreign Affairs committee  I appreciate your question. I'll provide you with some details. To your question, certainly the way in which, in this case, those national examinations are envisioned is set entirely by the Ethiopian government. Ethiopia's National Educational Assessment and Examinations Agency is the body that is responsible for managing that.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that there are, quite frankly, a lot of complexities to how this is operationalized. As I said, I highlighted the pilot that is currently being undertaken in Ethiopia. It is the only pilot in the world being undertaken. So that gives you an indication as to how significant even the number of dollars dedicated to this style of aid are.