It's Time for an Overhaul of Canada's Foreign Aid Program
OTTAWA, Sept. 23 /CNW/ - Canada's $5 billion foreign aid program is in need of a fundamental overhaul to better address the current realities of developing countries, concluded a series of papers prepared for the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and released today by its Senior Fellow, Patrick Johnston, in Ottawa.
The Gordon Papers, authored by Patrick Johnston and academics at the London School of Economics and Memorial University, re-imagine Canada's foreign aid in an effort to understand why it is underperforming relative to its peers.
Canada's percent of Gross National Income (GNI) dedicated to foreign aid was 0.3% as of 2009—far below the target of 0.7% of GNI that was first proposed by former Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson and subsequently adopted by the UN as the global target. This put Canada in 14th place - the bottom half - of 23 OECD donor countries that averaged aid spending of 0.48 % of (GNI).
"This is not only about the quantity of aid funds donated, it's about the quality and efficacy of our foreign aid as well," said Johnston. "Criticism of Canadian foreign aid is not new, but the current crisis of confidence in the effectiveness of Canada's aid and development efforts appears to have reached a high water mark."
Johnston's paper asserts CIDA is "a federal agency that many people love to hate", but explains that the problems that plague CIDA go well beyond the agency's ability to resolve on its own, and "nothing less than fundamental cross-government reform of our whole approach to aid and development is required."
If Canada is to improve the overall performance of its foreign aid program, it must resolve the problems posed by a diffusion of authority and responsibility, the lack of an agreed aid mandate, limited public understanding and fickle financial support. The solution must be built upon shared Canadian values and cross-partisan support, cross-government engagement, an embrace of multilateralism, and sufficient political leadership and public engagement.
The papers also provide lessons for Canada based comparative studies from other jurisdictions such as the UK and Norway that have or are attempting to modernize the delivery of their aid and development programs.
The papers can be downloaded here: http://www.gordonfn.org/ForeignAidProject.cfm.cfm?cp=110
Re-imagining Canadian Foreign Aid
Backgrounder
Punching Below our Weight
- Canada is not the generous foreign aid donor that many Canadians believe us to be:
In 2009, Canada's spending on Official Development Assistant (ODA) amounted to 0.3% of Canada's Gross National Income (GNI). This places Canada in the bottom half of the major country donor members of OECD, ranking 14th place of the 23 countries surveyed. Canadian foreign aid spending places us well below the average OECD donor country level of 0.48% of GNI and far short of the UN target of 0.7 %
- Europeans are more generous foreign aid donors than Canada
Although Canada survived the 2008 market and financial crisis better than almost every other country in the world, the majority of European donors continued to be far more generous than Canada. In 2009, 13 countries in Europe spent more on foreign aid relative to GNI than Canada ranging from expenditures of 0.52% in the UK to 0.82% in the Netherlands to 1.12% in Sweden
- Canada's commitment to foreign aid spending has witnessed a slow, inexorable decline for many years
In 1984-85, Canada's foreign aid spending amounted to 0.5% of (GNI). In 1994-95, a decade later, that amount had dropped to 0.4% of GNI and by 2004-05 it had fallen again to .31% of GNI - roughly where it was in 2009. These declines happened during both Liberal and Conservative administrations. Given the federal government's 2010 budget freeze on future increases in development spending, it seems likely that this downward trend will continue.
- The quality of Canadian foreign aid also leaves much to be desired
In May 2010, the World Bank released a study on the quality of foreign aid provided by major donors. The Study, "Aid Quality and Donor Rankings", assessing and comparing 38 major donors including OECD country donors as well as multilateral donors like the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations. Using 2007 data, the World Bank report ranked Canada in 29th place of the 38 foreign aid donors surveyed.
The Gordon Papers
The following 4 papers were prepared as part of the Gordon foundation project to "re-imagine" Canadian foreign aid.
Modernizing Canadian Foreign aid and Development: Challenges Old and New by Patrick Johnston, Senior Fellow, Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.
Summary: This paper begins with a summary of long standing challenges to Canada's foreign aid program. It argues that, if Canada is to improve the overall performance of its foreign aid program, it must resolve the problems posed by a diffusion of authority and responsibility, the lack of an agreed aid mandate, limited public understanding and fickle financial support. The paper also surveys some of the new and emerging development trends that suggest a fundamental reform of Canada's aid program is more important today than ever before. Finally, the paper identifies two of the key barriers to the modernization of Canadian foreign aid.
A New National Project for Canadian Development Cooperation by Liam Swiss, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Memorial University with the assistance of Simon Maxwell, Overseas Development Institute (UK)
Summary: This paper outlines reforms to Canadian international development cooperation in light of a set of recent global drivers of change which are reshaping the development agenda internationally. Three primary drivers of change are identified: (1) Financial volatility and economic globalisation; (2) Climate change; and (3) Insecurity, conflict, and fragility. To respond to these challenges, the paper proposes a six-point plan to reform our development cooperation built upon: shared Canadian values and cross-partisan support, cross-government engagement on development, an embrace of multilateralism, and sufficient political leadership and public engagement to undertake this new national approach to development cooperation
Re-imagining Canadian Development Cooperation: A Comparative Examination of Norway and the UK by Nilima Gulrajani, Assistant Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science
Summary: This paper offers a detailed comparative study of Norwegian and UK aid architectures, with a view to informing discussions on reform and renewal within Canada's development programme. This is undertaken via a quantitative assessment of each country's standing on accepted measures of donor performance, as well as via a qualitative case study that traces and compares the processes and nature of organizational reforms undertaken in Norway and the UK. Based on this quantitative and qualitative analysis, lessons for Canada are presented along four key dimensions, namely strategy, governance, policy processes and organizational management.
Future Directions for Canadian Foreign Aid and Development
Summary of a roundtable discussion in May 2010 held at the Munk School of Global Affairs including current and former politicians and civil servants, aid experts and practitioners, academics and journalists.
Recent and Related Reports
The following two recently released reports have also called for a major overhaul of the way in which Canada delivers foreign aid.
In May 2010, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute released the report, Reinventing CIDA, written by Gordon Smith and Barry Carin, former Deputy Minister and Assistant Deputy Minister respectively of Foreign Affairs. The report can be access here.
http://www.cdfai.org/PDF/Reinventing%20CIDA.pdf
In June 2010, the Canadian International Council released the report Open Canada: A Global Positioning Strategy for a Networked Age with a separate chapter entitled Development: In Aid of New Approaches
For further information:
For more information, please contact the authors:
Patrick Johnston, Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, [email protected], 416-809-2649 (mobile)
Nilima Gulrajani, London School of Economics and Political Science, [email protected], 44 207 955 6082
Liam Swiss, Memorial University, [email protected], 709-864-4467
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