CIDA being set up to fail again: Experts By Lee Berthiaume Published November 11, 2009

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The fact CIDA is in the process of or has already implemented all the recommendations of last week's auditor general's report proves the government is on the right track to reforming the aid agency, says Minister Bev Oda.

Yet many are saying the audit didn't go far enough to identify the real reasons past CIDA reforms have failed. In particular, they feel that as long as the aid agency does not have a legislated mandate and independent minister, it will continue to be at the whims of whatever government is in power.

The result, they argue, is that the government has received a stamp of approval for its so-called aid effectiveness agenda, but the agency will in all likelihood find itself back in the same situation in a few short years.

Last week, Auditor General Sheila Fraser released a report that found significant problems with previous efforts to make CIDA more effective. The audit said shifting priorities, a lack of planning and constant changes at the top were in fact hurting development efforts.

In an interview last week, Ms. Oda said the government welcomed the report.

"We agree with all their observations and recommendations," she said. "And I find that it's going to be a very effective tool for us to keep working, for our government to keep working on actually implementing an aid effectiveness agenda and taking real action."

The basis for the audit was a 2002 CIDA policy statement that committed to changing the way projects were approved, focusing on fewer countries and sectors, and working closer with recipient countries and other donors. However, the auditor general's office found that many of the processes set up following the policy statement were abandoned or never put in place.

Ms. Oda pointed the blame to previous Liberal governments, and said the current Conservative government has taken real steps to improve aid effectiveness. She noted that since she became CIDA minister, the aid agency has untied Canadian food aid and has committed to untying non-food aid as well.

"We've actually geographically and thematically narrowed the focus," she added. "We're working on a plan of decentralization. We've actually just completed the review of all the major country strategies to...increase focus there. And we're looking at the multilateral and the partnership programs. If you think about it, in a very short time we've actually taken some very great steps."

Yet previous governments also committed to reducing the number of countries in which CIDA works. As well, the auditor general found that CIDA's "priority themes" had changed five times in the past seven years. The most recent shift came this year, when the current government said Canada would be focused on food security, children and youth, and economic development.

The main recommendation out of the auditor general's report was the formulation of a real implementation plan to make CIDA more effective. Ms. Oda said the agency is in the midst of doing just that.

"What you will see is that the department now actually has written an aid effectiveness strategy plan for the department and those in the field," she said. "The next thing I've asked for the department to work on is an implementation plan. You can make nice statements and make nice speeches, but unless you follow these things through and actually ensure that real steps are being taken and that there is a plan to implement, you'll never see the results that you want to see. So that's our next step."

Progress without mandate?

During a press conference with reporters following the report's release last week, the auditor general blamed many of the shortcomings outlined in her report on changes at the top of CIDA.

"As we mentioned, there have been many ministers and many presidents of the agency, and I suspect that is part of the problem," Ms. Fraser said.

That problem is compounded, say experts and opposition critics, because the aid agency doesn't have a legislated mandate. In addition, the CIDA minister answers to the foreign affairs minister, which means it is not strongly represented at the Cabinet table.

In the government's defence, Ms. Oda noted that Cabinet must now approve the decision to change focus countries for Canadian assistance, while Cabinet also approved the three new priorities or themes.

But the bottom line, say experts, is that even if the current government creates a plan to make CIDA more effective—the definition of which is still unclear—it could be abandoned if and when there's another change in government. As a result, the auditor general could come back in a few years and find exactly the same problems.

"That criticism, that the Liberals could come into government and change it all over again, that is a totally valid criticism," acknowledged Liberal CIDA critic Glen Pearson. "That is what's been happening to CIDA."

Mr. Pearson is one of those who strongly believes that the lack of a legislated mandate for CIDA, as well as an independent minister sitting at the Cabinet table, are strong contributors to the aid agency's drift.

"CIDA has just been at the whim of all these other departments that just want to use it for various causes, Afghanistan being an example of that," he said.

"We need a legislated mandate that says you can only operate in these parameters. That's important for CIDA but it's also important for other departments that want to come a pilfering. They look at that and say 'Oh my God, if I did that I would actually break the mandate of CIDA.'"

The closest the agency has to a legislated mandate is the Aid Accountability Act, also known as Bill C-293, which was approved by all parties in Parliament last year. The act requires that Canadian aid be used solely to reduce poverty, that it takes account of the perspectives of the poor, and that assistance be consistent with international human right standards.

"Bill C-293 was an attempt to depoliticize aid to make sure that it's focused on poverty reduction, above all," says Stephen Brown, an aid expert at the University of Ottawa.

However, the government has been lukewarm in its reception of the legislation. Its first mandatory report to Parliament under the act was widely seen as an attempt to meet minimal requirements as opposed to using it as a tool for really providing CIDA with direction.

Experts and development groups lamented the fact the act did not receive a single mention in the auditor general's report, which would have provided a real benchmark against which to measure the otherwise abstract notion of aid effectiveness.

"It is my sense that [the auditor general] never took C-293 into account, which was the one big thing I felt represented a game changer for CIDA," said Mr. Pearson.

At the same time, experts believe the Conservative government has co-opted the auditor general's report by declaring that it agreed with all the recommendation, and was acting upon them. The reality, says Mr. Brown, is that the government is following in its predecessor's tracks.

"The very fact that they've switched [countries and themes] again falls into this trap that the auditor general identified," he said. "That points to a more fundamental problem with CIDA, which is politicization. "What the Conservatives would really like is to say 'OK, we're not going to keep changing it anymore, so therefore what we've decided stays.' But the solution is not to just let one party's preference remain forever, but to find a non-partisan solution that doesn't only resonate with one political party or the other, to try to find a consensus, and have it more based on knowledge of development...and less on scoring political points."

Ted Jackson, a development expert at Carleton University who has written extensively on reforming CIDA, said unless dramatic changes are made—and he's not convinced CIDA can be salvaged as it currently exists—"we will continue to have more reports like the AG's coming out in three years, five years."

Unfortunately, the way the auditor general's report has been written, "it gives [the agency] a way to basically continue business as usual and say, 'Yes, we've responded to the AG's report. We have a clean bill of health,' and the real danger is things will continue.

"If there's a weakness in the report in general, it's that it doesn't go far enough."

lee@embassymag.ca