Hey, Big Spender: Budget Cuts at CIDA

There is a curious juxtaposition between CIDA Minister Bev Oda’s sense of personal entitlement – a room at the Savoy, $1000-a-day limousines – and the ruthlessness with which she has presided over cuts to CIDA’s operational budget. It isn’t just the luxury spending on herself as compared with how many children might have been inoculated with that $1000. It seems that no amount of bad behaviour on her part will go unrewarded by the Prime Minister.

By reappointing her after the “not” scandal, Prime Minister Harper thumbed his nose at all those who had called – with some justification – for her head. By ignoring her serial luxury binges while giving CIDA the Costa Concordia treatment, he is telling those who care deeply about Canada’s role in the world and its efforts to reduce poverty that they might as well get in the lifeboats or swim for the shore.

That, of course, is what is happening to most government departments – with the possible exception of the Canada Revenue Agency, now tasked with hunting down and exterminating charities with opinions. Which raises a question about who has spoken out about the CIDA cuts, cuts that will reduce Canada’s aid program to about the same level as that of Greece. A quick survey of the Canadian media shows that dozens of outlets have condemned the cuts. In a Times-Colonist column carried by other Canadian papers, Nathaniel Poole put it well:

It is unconscionable to deny a child a two-cent vitamin A pill that could keep him or her from going blind.

There can be no justification for withholding $20 worth of drugs that would save a mother of five from an agonizing death by tuberculosis…

One can argue forever where cuts should happen and how, but there can never be any rational, ethical or moral justification for one of the richest countries in the world claiming a lack of money when cutting help to the poorest.

This was the attitude taken by Britain’s Conservative government when deciding on the toughest austerity budget since the 1970s. It left a much more generous aid budget than Canada’s alone.

To their credit, the Canadian Association of International Development Consultants and the business-oriented Canadian Council for Africa have spoken out. Others, however, appear to see only opportunity in the disaster. Like buzzards circling above an abattoir, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association website says, “Private industry and the Canadian International Development Agency are looking for ways to work closer in developing countries. The business community and CIDA may start building on successes first done by the mining sector as a way to both promote Canadian business in the Third World and help bring CIDA programs to developing countries.”

Oddly, the Canadian NGOs that once campaigned for more and better aid have been pretty much silent on the cuts to CIDA. A search of the websites of those with the largest numbers of donors, members and alumnae – World Vision, Plan, CARE, CUSO, the Mennonite Central Committee – reveals only silence about the cuts. Development and Peace, a recent victim of the CIDA slasher, talks only about itself and its own budget.

The Canadian Council for International Cooperation has done a detailed analysis of the cuts, Engineers Without Borders campaigned against them and Oxfam Canada has deplored them, but beyond that, the craven hush is deafening. And very sad

Transparency

In 2011, Canada joined the International Aid Transparency Initiative, a global standard that aims to make information about aid spending easier to access, use and understand. The move was timely (although there is still no implementation schedule, four months after signing), not least because obtaining meaningful details on CIDA spending has always been difficult.

But transparency, it seems, will be limited to “where” and “how much”. The “why” will continue to be elusive, as will predictability and consistency. When CIDA cut all funding to the Canadian Teacher’s Federation last year, the Globe and Mail said that the decision-making process had been less than transparent. In a letter to the paper, CIDA President Margaret Biggs shot back: “CTF was given a clear, written explanation for the decision,” which presumably had to do with the fact that “CTF was unable to show how short-term staff and teacher visits abroad would produce lasting results in those countries.”

This isn’t the place to go into CIDA’s dysfunctional fetish with “lasting results” or why CIDA only realized in 2011, after decades of support to the CTF, that it wasn’t getting enough of these “lasting results”. Biggs did say, however, that “We learn more as time passes,” and she referred to “today’s standards”. Understandably, the letters section of the Globe was not the place for elaboration.

It seems that there is no other place for elaboration either. Instead of responding to proposals made by Canadian organizations acting independently abroad, CIDA now requires NGOs to submit bids in specific competitions. Vast detail is required, including, of course, how proposed activities will lead to “lasting results”. The submissions are then gathered into the bowels of CIDA where civil servants pore over them, for months usually, before making their recommendations to the Minister.

The Minister reserves the right to put a “not” in front of words like “recommended”. NGOs and organizations like the Canadian Teacher’s Federation have no “entitlement” to CIDA funding -- as they are now frequently reminded. CIDA can change its priorities and fund (or defund) anyone it wants.

You’d like to think, however, that there is at least some method in this, and that if CIDA were truly interested in lasting results, then predictability and consistency would play a role. You’d also think there might be some common definitions and standards – the sort you’d expect if you were writing a high school exam. You might flunk the exam, but you’d be told why – with specifics. If you passed, you’d know by how much and where you could have done better. That’s part of “learning”.

In recent months CIDA has been exercising its right to change its mind (and to cancel what might have passed for entitlements) at an alarming rate. Some NGOs with good track records and positive CIDA evaluations have been completely defunded; others have been cut by as much as 75%. This might be about “results”, as the minister claims. Or it might be because the countries where the NGOs proposed to work are not among CIDA’s favoured few. Or perhaps there is an unwanted advocacy program of some sort lurking in the NGO’s past, criticizing the Canadian government or a Canadian mining operation abroad. Perhaps the NGO used the wrong font in its application or maybe the Minister just had a  bad day.

Touchingly, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) thought it might do its members a favour by trying to find out why some proposals have been approved and others not. Under the Access to Information Act, it asked CIDA for a “rating and ranking” of its decisions on several recent NGO competitions. Having been defunded itself by CIDA without explanation, you’d think CCIC might know better, but hope, as they say, springs eternal. What CCIC got back was a heavily redacted (i.e., blacked out) set of lists. All of the approved projects and amounts were there – no big surprise as most of this was already on the CIDA website. Blacked out were all details of rejected proposals: no names, no amounts, no reasons. Also blacked out were any comments about the winning bids – no reasons given for any approval or rejection.

If nobody is allowed to know why an application has been approved or rejected, how will NGOs know what to do next time? How on earth can they know what CIDA is learning “as time passes”? And how, for that matter, is the public to know why this plan appears to offer “lasting results” and that one not?

If, like CCIC, you thought that the Access to Information Act might help, think again. CIDA hides behind the following provision:
21. (1) The head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains (a) advice or recommendations developed by or for a government institution or a minister of the Crown.

If you want genuine transparency from CIDA, you might as well use a crystal ball.

Defanging the NGOs

“Defanging”—that’s what one observer has called it. “Wrecking” might be another term for what CIDA is doing to Canada’s once vibrant, once independent NGO sector. A survey of 158 organizations just released by the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) and its seven provincial/regional counterparts has confirmed what many already suspected: that CIDA’s new rules of engagement have weakened the credibility and the capacities of NGOs, added to their costs, damaged or disrupted their overseas programs and put a chill on the advocacy work of those that were so inclined.

Let’s recap: beginning in the 1960s, CIDA supported independent NGO development work for three reasons. First, NGOs did good work that was often innovative and ground-breaking. Second, NGOs carried the Canadian flag to some countries and remote areas that CIDA itself could never reach. Third, NGOs worked with donations provided by Canadians over and above the tax dollars already being spent by CIDA. By “matching” these donations, CIDA could encourage more good work, improve Canada’s reputation abroad and generate more private donations.

In the early 1980s, CIDA looked for a way to streamline its project-by-project, year-by-year approach. It began to give multi-year “program funding” to NGOs with proven track records. The NGOs in question had to follow an agreed plan and submit to regular CIDA evaluations, but the new approach speeded up the process and gave NGOs and their overseas partners the kind of continuity, discretion and predictability that are essential elements of effective development.

In 2011 all that was swept aside by CIDA’s new approach. Now CIDA puts out a call for proposals and asks NGOs to send in competitive bids on initiatives of CIDA’s choosing. Typically, half the money must be spent in CIDA’s own “countries of focus”, and 80% must be spent on CIDA’s own chosen themes. The themes are broad, but independence is gone. And the “countries of focus” rule is counter-intuitive. It draws NGOs away from countries they have worked in for years, countries where needs are great and where they might be the only Canadian development presence of any kind. In fact CIDA’s list covers only 19 countries plus the Caribbean. Some of the 19 are not poor (for example, Ukraine and Peru) and 88% of Africa’s 54 countries are excluded.

But that’s the way it is. So NGOs that want or need CIDA funding knuckle under, pore over CIDA’s incredibly obtuse 45-page guidelines, try to fill out the 16-page questionnaire (keeping the answers and annexes to the maximum 25-page limit), send it in and hope for the best. The cost in staff time and dollars is high and the CIDA approval process is as opaque and as fickle as it is slow.

If you are an NGO that engages in any kind of advocacy, you might as well forget it. The Mennonite Central Committee, one of Canada’s most respected development organizations, had a recent proposal rejected. Maybe all the others in that competition were better. Maybe the MCC proposal was just no good. Or maybe it was because MCC has been a strong advocate on issues of human rights around a Canadian gold mining operation in Honduras.

So here are a couple of hints for securing CIDA funding: a) no advocacy, and b) find a Canadian mining firm you can “partner” with. No competitive bids were required for generous CIDA grants to Plan, WUSC and World Vision in their co-funding arrangements with IAMGOLD, Rio Tinto Alcan and Barrick Gold respectively.

CIDA Minister Bev Oda talks non-stop about results and effectiveness, but the new funding arrangements almost guarantee the opposite. Schools do not operate on a CIDA funding cycle; farmers cannot wait for CIDA decisions and a minister’s signature. Trust does not develop on a stop-start basis. And without a modicum of predictability and continuity, no NGO can offer efficiency or effectiveness.

When backed into a corner on the stupidity and destructiveness of the current systems, CIDA officials shrug and say that they are under no obligation to fund anyone. True enough. But perhaps they should have a look at the Hippocratic Oath and think about its fundamental principle: “Do no harm.” The current system damages Canada’s reputation and our outreach to the world; it damages good organizations and good people; and it damages the very principles CIDA and its minister espouse: effectiveness and efficiency, not to mention CIDA’s own purpose for existence: “to make a meaningful difference to people living in poverty”.

The CCIC report can be found at http://www.ccic.ca/media/news_detail_e.php?id=190.

Haiti: More Announceables

It has been two years since the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed over 300,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. In January, on the anniversary of the event, Canada’s Minister for International Cooperation, Bev Oda, paid a visit to Port au Prince, with the customary blizzard of press releases.

One is hard-pressed to imagine the joy of Haitians at yet another visit from the Honourable Bev, who has made multiple trips to the country during her tenure as minister responsible for CIDA. But Haitians would be fully justified in asking “So what?” in the face of more promises from Canada.

The official line from CIDA, on behalf of the Canadian government, is that Canada’s generosity to Haiti knows no bounds. “Canada is on track to disburse more than $1 billion in Haiti (2006-2012) to implement long-term development and to meet immediate humanitarian and reconstruction needs….” according to Ms Oda’s letter marking her visit. But just what is happening to this impressive amount of money?

The showcase announcement during the Minister’s most recent Haitian sojourn was $20 million for the resettlement of 5,000 families who have been living since the earthquake in makeshift shelter on the Champ de Mars, a major park in the centre of Port au Prince. The label on this project is “Canada to resettle Haitians from Champ de Mars.” No mention of Haitian partners, whether government or civil society. Isn’t it their country? Maybe we just forgot.

In digesting the news of this latest component of Canadian largesse, a certain degree of scepticism is understandable. When will this wonderful – and very necessary – work actually be done? Canada is very adept at making announcements, but delivering is another matter. Look at the saga of the national police academy, an $18 million project announced in October 2008, in recognition that a strong and competent police force is an essential component of Haiti’s sustainable development. Good for Canada to support this initiative.

Obviously Ms Oda thinks so too, which is why she re-announced the project in April 2010, though nothing had been done by CIDA to implement the project to that point. All right, there had been an earthquake in January, but even before then the project had become embroiled in contractual gridlock. In a press release in October 2011, the last time Oda was in Haiti, there was again mention of the national police academy project (“Canada is committed to the construction of the National Police Academy….”) but no word on when it would happen.

Hence the cynicism in reading the fulsome announcement regarding the displaced persons resettlement project; it’s natural to speculate a bit on just when anything will actually occur. In dealing with Haiti, is Canada following the pattern of so many donors and external agencies scrambling to do things right – Ms Oda’s well known preoccupation with her version of accountability – rather than doing the right things, and helping build Haiti’s capacity to develop itself?

In the absence of meaningful details from CIDA on what has been and is being done with the $1 billion-plus devoted to Haiti –  as opposed to press releases extolling ministerial commitments –  one is left to speculate how many other commitments made in the last three to four years are also languishing somewhere in bureaucratic limbo. More transparency regarding Canada’s aid performance is long overdue. This would be welcomed by Canadians, and even more by our partners in developing countries. Now that Canada has signed on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, can we hope for some change?

Aid Transparency: It's About Time

On November 28, CIDA announced that Canada was joining the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). This is a welcome move.

In recent years there has been a growing demand for greater transparency in foreign aid: how much is being spent, where, on what and for whom. And of course, taxpayers want to know what effect it is having. The problem is that while governments do publish annual statistics on aid-giving, data is often general, incomplete, out of date and it cannot be readily compared with that of other countries. Many donor countries, Canada included, count things in their “aid envelope” that do not meet the OECD definition of official development assistance. “Aid” is frequently used to advance the commercial, strategic and military priorities of the giver. Pledges are announced with much fanfare, often more than once, but they are not always redeemed. Finding out precisely what Canada pledged in response to the Haiti earthquake, for example, is virtually impossible. Getting trustworthy data on what has actually been spent cannot be obtained, it seems, without applying to Access to Information.

The problem is bigger than that, however. Most donors do not have timely information about what others are spending. The result is a badly coordinated mish-mash, with donors crowding into some sectors and some countries, while completely ignoring others. Recipient countries cannot plan or balance their own spending with any accuracy or predictability, and while all donors speak about their desire for results, monitoring and evaluation remain as patchy as the delivery. After 50 years of what many critics call “failed aid”, taxpayers and the citizens of recipient countries have a right to know how these very large aid budgets are being spent.

The multi-government 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action called, inter alia, for greater aid coordination, transparency and predictability. But on these issues there has been little or no progress and aid has actually become more fragmented than ever. Now, at last, there is a solution: the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) that CIDA has just joined. It calls on donors to put their money where their mouth is, or more precisely, to put their reporting where their money is.

IATI has developed a common, international standard that sets guidelines for publishing information about aid spending. This is not a new database, and it doesn’t replace existing systems like the one managed by the OECD. It complements and supplements standards and definitions that have already been agreed.

Donors that become members of IATI – and the term “donor” includes governments, foundations, multilateral institutions and NGOs -- agree to make public, in a detailed and timely fashion, information on aid volumes, aid allocations and the results of development expenditure when they are available.

In addition, participating donors and developing countries will make public all conditions linked to disbursements. Donors will provide full and timely information on annual commitments and actual disbursements, allowing recipients to accurately record aid flows in their budget estimates and accounting systems. And donors will provide full and timely information on their rolling three- to five-year forward expenditure and implementation plans, allowing recipient countries to integrate them into their medium-term planning.

This idea is long overdue. Britain and the World Bank have signed on and have indicated starting dates. Australia, Denmark, Switzerland and half a dozen others, including the European Union and Germany, are on the road to implementation. Two dozen developing countries have endorsed IATI, including almost half of those designated as countries of focus by CIDA.

Having announced its intention to join the IATI, Canada now has some work to do. The international “Publish What You Fund” coalition, which campaigns for greater transparency in foreign aid, ranks Canada in 28th place out of 58 donors – “poor” but not dismal, and better than France, Germany and theUnited States. With some effort, we could go from a B-minus to something considerably better.

The proof, of course will be in the pudding. Canada passed an “Aid Accountability Act” in 2008, requiring a central focus on poverty reduction. Aid watchers are still awaiting meaningful implementation by the government.