McLeod Group Blog by Ian Smillie, July 26, 2016
When Canada’s Official Development Assistance Accountability Act became law during the first minority government of Stephen Harper, there was hearty applause from the international development community. Introduced as a private member’s bill by Liberal MP John McKay, Bill C-293 won the support of all parties and received Royal Assent at the end of May 2008. According to Global Affairs Canada (GAC), ‘Its purpose is to ensure that all Canadian official development assistance (ODA) is focused on poverty reduction and is consistent with aid effectiveness principles and Canadian values. It applies to all federal departments and agencies that provide ODA.’
The faces of smiling development ministers adorn the preface of each annual report to parliament on Canada’s ODA, and the Act now serves as the backdrop for long lists of projects and programs managed not just by CIDA (and subsequently DFATD and GAC), but Health Canada, the Department of Finance, the RCMP and others. It turns out that everything the government called ‘aid’ was already all about ending poverty; no problem here. The words ‘poor’ and ‘poorest’ appeared in the 2012-13 report, for example, 17 times, and ‘poverty’ 27 times.
An outsider reading that report and others would be unaware that the Act did nothing to prevent a savaging of Canada’s aid program over the seven years following its passage. Aid to ten very poor countries was ended and new programs were started in middle-income countries where Canada was pursuing trade deals and mining investments. The Canadian International Development Agency, hoovered into the Department of Foreign Affairs in the name of improved programming, became a plaything of politicians promoting the Harper government’s Global Markets Action Plan. NGOs, once supported because they carried out innovative programs among the world’s poorest communities, saw the government’s responsive program atrophy and found themselves turned into public service contractors, bidding on contracts designed by government.
The ODA Accountability Act, frequently invoked and earnestly cited, has turned out to be a toothless reminder of what has not been done rather than the promoter and guardian of a new kind of development assistance.
This could change if Canada were to create something along the lines of the British Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI). The ICAI ‘scrutinizes official UK aid spending’ and is independent of government. It reports to the International Development Committee of the British Parliament, its reports are public and the government is required to provide a management response to its findings. It four commissioners, all with excellent development credentials, are appointed for four years and are supported by a small secretariat based in London. The ICAI has a strong conflict of interest policy and clear whistleblowing guidance. It has a framework agreement with the British Department for International Development (DFID), safeguarding its independence. Its core values are accountability, feedback and learning, analytical rigour, transparency and accessibility. Its reviews are designed ‘with a clear purpose and audience in mind.’
This year it has issued a report on DFID’s efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls and another on its results in water, sanitation and hygiene. Coming are reports on basic education for marginalized girls, the management of fiduciary risk in countries at war, and DFID’s contribution to tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion.
ICAI reports are frank and sometimes provide fodder for aid critics and opposition parties. A 2014 report gave DFID an ‘amber-red’ assessment on ‘how DFID learns‘ but it led to changes within the department and earned ICAI high marks from British development guru Duncan Green, who wrote, ‘Props [respect] to the UK government for setting up ICAI in the first place.’ Green called it a ‘really impressive example of rigour, transparency and accountability,’ saying he suspected that ICAI ‘would be even more critical of NGOs and other aid organizations.’
Nothing like that exists in Canada. It should, especially if the ODA Accountability Act is ever to be taken seriously. And now, with the government’s current foreign aid review wrapping up, is the time to do it.