McLeod Group Blog, June 16, 2015
You will serve as Minister of International Development Cooperation, with full cabinet membership, reporting directly to me as Prime Minister. As Minister you will:
Policy
- Rebuild Canada’s capacity to be a strong global development actor after a decade of institutional neglect and distorted priorities.
- Develop programs within a broad made-in-Canada framework that does not rely on norms and precedents of G7 and OECD member states. Engaging the South is critical to Canada’s future well-being, its economic, political and basic security.
- Have a departmental mandate independent of the political and trade dimensions of foreign policy. However, policy coherence for development remains an important partnership goal for all government departments.
- Adopt the public title of ‘CIDA’ for your department, regardless of its form, recouping a proud brand with five decades of global credibility as Canada’s public vehicle for development cooperation.
- Reconfirm poverty reduction as the core programming goal of this government, drawing substantially on the human and financial resources we allocate to CIDA as an organizational unit. The ODA Accountability Act will be a regulatory framework for you and all other ministers with portfolios that affect developing countries. Canada’s grant aid should align with the UN’s Post-2015 Agenda. Take risks! Effective development cooperation is inherently risky.
- Present to Cabinet a new list of up to 20 priority countries within the first three months. In this update, least developed and fragile countries should represent at least 70% by number and by dollar value of bilateral aid. The list should remain stable for at least four years. ‘Need’ more than ‘absorptive capacity’ should be the core selection criterion. Canada’s Paris Declaration commitment to country ownership means that sectoral/thematic focus is to be substantially shaped by the recipient, rather than by us.
- While recognizing the short-term budgetary constraints for Canada, plan for an increase in the ODA/GNI ratio to 0.3% in our first budget. Additionally plan for increases to an ODA level of 0.5% of GNI over the mandate of this government and 0.7% thereafter. Also move to multi-year budgeting to increase predictability.
Operations
- Lead an autonomous unit with its own deputy minister and a strong decentralized presence in priority developing countries. It shall deliver Canada’s contribution to implementing the UN Post-2015 Agenda and bring a greater responsiveness to development considerations in the work of other political and economic departments.
- Work with the PCO/PMO, Treasury Board and Foreign Affairs on institutionalizing CIDA either as an essentially autonomous part of the existing Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) or, if judged institutionally more effective, as a free-standing ministry.
- Ensure CIDA has the following key features in its organizational architecture:
- Recognition that Canada’s economic and geopolitical future lie in a broad approach, one based upon global partnerships, including stronger relations with the Global South.
- Resources for development cooperation, people, budgets and institutions that are not to be diverted for short-term benefits for Canadian private entities. (Trade incentives and private sector support will be provided by other departments.)
- A new core mandate to act as a strong, empathetic voice on development issues in government decision-making. The present amalgamation model has failed to deliver this. Critically, CIDA will have a mandate that extends beyond delivering traditional aid (official development assistance, ODA) to one of also influencing the substance of related aspects of Canada’s international policy, notably in trade, geopolitics/global security, human rights and global institutions, both financial and environmental.
- Create a small independent advisory panel for CIDA. The panel will comprise a mix of independent Canadians and leading thinkers from developing countries.
- Create a program of public engagement that explains Canada’s development priorities to Canadians. Working with the media, educators and civil society organizations (CSOs), this program should have a budget representing the UN benchmark of 1% of ODA within a year of startup.
- Fill all the vacancies on the board of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Half of board members should be non-Canadians. Board members should be individuals with substantial development experience, drawn, inter alia, from academia, CSOs and development policy think-tanks.
- Recognize the rights of CSOs as independent development actors. Reinstate responsive funding mechanisms. End the treatment of CSOs as public service contractors. Provide programmatic financial support to suitably qualified domestic and developing country CSOs.
- Recognize the damage in recent years to professional competence and commitment at CIDA. Work over the first 12 months to bring together a re-energized core staff, largely composed of committed, skilled professionals and effective civil servants who seek careers in international development. Appoint a deputy minister with a substantial international experience; seek assistant deputy ministers for core programs (bilateral, partnership, multilateral, policy) with solid development policy and programming backgrounds.
- Eliminate, within the next three years, an important inconsistency by moving departmental responsibility for the World Bank Group, still the single most powerful multilateral development institution, to CIDA.
- For deeper policy coherence, ensure that CIDA has effective representation in Canada’s teams managing policy and programming relations with the UN system, Bretton Woods institutions, World Trade Organization (WTO), and policy fora such as the G7, G20, and the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD.
Signed,
The Rt. Hon. Prime Minister
[See also McLeod Group Election Policy Brief #14: A Development Cooperation Policy for Canada]