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.

Asbestos and Harper: When Facts Don't Matter…

Friedrich Nietzsche once said "there are no facts, only interpretations." With that in mind, let's try to discern what Prime Minister Harper is thinking with his latest embrace of Quebec's asbestos industry and its ridiculous assertion that the "safe use" of asbestos - outside of Canada, of course - is not some deadly joke on the world's poor. Some "facts." It is impossible to find a reputable, independent, peer-reviewed international medical research or workplace health and safety institution arguing that chrysotile asbestos can be used safely by humans without significant risk of cancer.

The International Agency for Cancer Research states there is no safe exposure limit to asbestos of any kind, echoed by the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization. The WHO says more than 100,000 people die each year from asbestos-related diseases.

The World Bank mandates that, even in disasters, asbestos must not be used for emergency construction projects.

The Canadian Cancer Society, the US Government and all 27 member states of the European Union call for a total ban.

Even the provincially-funded "Institut national de santé publique du Québec"  argues "chrysotile asbestos is carcinogenic  .... safe use of asbestos is difficult, perhaps impossible."

In the cruel calculus of electoral politics, if this industry generated immense amounts of money and jobs, you could understand why "facts" could be ignored in pursuit of votes.

But it does not. Quebec's asbestos industry generates annual sales of less than $100 million and supports roughly 600 jobs, most part-time. That hardly seems enough influence, even in one riding, to determine an electoral outcome.

(Inconvenient truth time: it's only very recently, with the industry shrinking, that the Liberals, the NDP and the Canadian Labour Congress called for an end to asbestos production. For decades, they supported government funding for the promotion of asbestos exports.)

So, the "interpretations."

Maybe Prime Minister Harper is simply playing a craven waiting game, gambling that, eventually, asbestos production in Canada will wither away. Recently released government documents (obtained  only through Freedom of Information requests) support this  position. So why risk losing those few asbestos industry-related votes in Quebec?

(There is an argument to make that beyond electoral politics, asbestos has an iconic importance in Quebec politics that transcends its ugly truth. The asbestos industry was central to the political awakening of modern Quebec during the late 1940s and early 1950s when virtually the whole province came together to support strikers against their then-American bosses ... helping to kick-start the careers of Trudeau, Marchand and Pelletier, who supported the strikers.)

But more likely – and more depressing – is the idea that, once again, the Prime Minister is simply ignoring the facts because of his ideological dislike of evidence presented by experts.

Think the cancelled long-form census, when Harper ignored warnings from statistical experts around the world that this would hurt Canada's economy.

Think crime stats, with Harper ignoring an outpouring of evidence that crime of almost every kind in Canada is steadily declining to argue that what the country needs is tougher laws and tougher prisons.

Sadly, the facts on asbestos' dangers – overwhelmingly consistent – will do nothing to convince Harper to reverse his support for the industry.

Which leaves the rest of us to buckle down and fight on: perhaps as a best bet, to call for a well-funded transition program to help miners and their families find new sustainable jobs.

But a fact – with no interpretation possible – is that our country must rid itself of its sadly-indisputable reputation as an industrial merchant of death.

On Libya, Environmental Protection and Canadian Prisons: Twelve O'Clock High

So, another Canadian foreign minister has visited China, presumably to sell more Canadian raw materials – as if that were a problem. The media seems satisfied that John Baird mentioned human rights – though what he said is left to conjecture. And who might care is another matter entirely. There was also the ritual nod to Canadian values, whatever those might be these days.

In a hawkish July 5 Maclean’s interview, Stephen Harper did talk a bit about Canadian values. He said he was “not dismissing peacekeeping… but…” we should now be thinking mainly of what he called “the triumvirate” in Canadian values: Canada as “the courageous warrior, compassionate neighbour, confident partner”. He doesn’t have to dismiss peacekeeping, of course; that has already been done. As of June 30, out of 83,400 blue-helmeted UN peacekeeping troops, only 21 soldiers were Canadians.

As for the courageous warrior, we don’t have to look a lot farther than John Baird’s June trip to eastern Libya. It is, of course, a good idea to get to know who we’re supporting in that mission, and for that Baird is to be commended. As evidence that he has perhaps watched the 1949 American war film Twelve O’Clock High a few times too many, however, he signed one of the bombs that Canadian fighters will drop on the western part of Libya, "Free Libya. Democracy."

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, CIDA’s results-obsessed Minister Bev Oda was bragging that she had taught the head of the World Food Programme the difference between outputs and outcomes. Maybe she could do the same with John Baird. The Libya mission is expected to have cost about $60 million by the end of September (probably a sizeable under-estimation), a good chunk of it in democracy-inducing bombs. By now, Canadians might ask themselves whether we should still be playing Monty in the eastern desert, signing bombs and the cheques that go with them, or whether we should be thinking about potential outcomes – not all of them, on second thought, perhaps so favourable.

As for the money, as C.D. Howe might have put it, “What’s $60 million?” Especially when we get to play with the big kids?

Well, it’s actually a lot where the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is concerned. The CEAA, which evaluates potentially harmful policies and projects before they get the green light, has just had its budget chopped from $30 million in 2011-12 to $17.1 million in 2012-13. This follows a 6.9% cut between last year and this. OK, maybe that’s just a red herring. But $60 million really is nothing compared to what we’re going to spend on prisons. The government’s forthcoming crime legislation is expected to increase Canada's prison population dramatically because of tougher parole rules and the elimination of “two-for-one” sentencing guidelines. That means we’ll need more prisons. The government says the cost of the package will be about $4 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Office, among others, says it will be much higher – as much as $10 billion. This, despite the fact that Statistics Canada tells us the country's crime rate has plunged to its lowest level since 1973. Using data provided by police forces across Canada, StatsCan says there were 2.1 million crimes last year, a drop of 5% from 2009. Statscan's "Crime Severity Index", which tracks violent crime, also dropped to its lowest level since the index was created in 1998.

Courageous? Compassionate? Confident? Perhaps StatsCan and the Parliamentary Budget Office will get the Twelve O’Clock High treatment next, like Libya and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

Two Cups of Tea: Miracle Cures and Other Development Snake Oil

A recent 60 Minutes investigation found that best-selling author and philanthropist, Greg Mortenson, may not be all he has cracked himself up to be. The ex-mountain climber has told the story many times of being rescued by Pakistani villagers and discovering how terrible their educational facilities were. One thing led to another and he eventually built them a school, and that school led to hundreds more around the country. His books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools have sold millions, and his Central Asia Institute, a registered US charity, has taken in tens of millions of dollars in donations.

But 60 Minutes told a different story, one repeated on television and in newspapers worldwide: Mortenson was not rescued by villagers. He did build a school – many, in fact – but not as many as he says, and a lot are simply not being used. The charity, 60 Minutes said, was paying for a lot of the promotion of Mortenson’s phenomenally successful books, but all proceeds go to Mortenson, not the charity. Mortenson refused to answer questions put to him by CBS news.

There is a double tragedy in this story, one reported in the media, the other created by the media. The first is that Mortenson, perhaps a well-meaning naïf, seems not to have delivered on his promise. That will fuel the cynicism about foreign aid that his books did so much – for a while -- to dispel. People will add this to the list of reasons for not supporting development assistance.

The bigger tragedy is that Mortenson – and the media that so lionized him for five years – created an idea of development that is fundamentally fictional. Yes, individuals can make a difference, but genuine development is much more complex than well-meaning Westerners charging about like Lady Bountiful, wiping the tears from the faces of unhappy children. Although Three Cups of Tea is all about schools, it contains no discussion about what goes on inside a school: education. The closest the book came to education, was when Mortenson’s wife made her first trip to Pakistan and stopped in Islamabad to buy some appropriate books for one of the school libraries. How might she have known what was appropriate for a rural Pakistani school? What language were the books written in?

The same shallowness bedevils other silver bullets, or at least how they are purveyed. The promise of microfinance is that a $25 loan can get a poor family out of destitution. Child sponsorship will save one of those crying kids that are sold on television like a buffet lunch for people wanting a quick feel-good opportunity. Too harsh? As part of a broader program of training and economic opportunity, microfinance can help. If it supports solid development programs, a child sponsorship agency can make a contribution.

But it’s time for an adult discussion about development. There are no silver bullets; poverty cannot be ended with small, one-off feel-good investments. Development takes time and money, and it requires strong support and leadership from the people who will benefit. It requires consistency as well, from the $25 donor and from institutional donors like the Canadian International Development Agency, which in recent years has been about as constant and dependable as Wile E. Coyote. If you want to support education in Pakistan, ask about teachers and curricula and running costs – the same questions you would ask in this country. If you want to support children, find organizations that support their parents. Paternalism only works if it is applied by genuine parents, not faraway benefactors. If you want to make a $25 loan through Kiva or some other mechanism, ask how borrowers are being advised, and ask how a poor person can find an investment good enough to repay the $25 with interest in a year, if not months. Think about it. There is a lot of great work being done out there, but there is no substitute for hard work, experience and long-term commitment.