June 20, 2011
Ottawa, ON
Good morning.
Thank you, Joseph [Joseph Ingram, President and CEO, The North-South Institute, introduced the Minister], for the kind introduction, and to the North-South Institute for inviting me to be here today.
Today is my first day back in Ottawa after attending the African Development Bank meetings in Lisbon, the GAVI pledging conference in London, and meetings with the World Food Program and IFAD in Rome-all multilateral organizations that Canada strongly supports.
And so, it is my pleasure to be here today as you commence your discussions on "The Future of Multilateral Development Cooperation in a Changing Global Order".
Many of the multilateral organizations, including the United Nations and Bretton Woods Institutions, that you will be discussing over the next two days were established in the years after World War II.
CIDA itself was created over 40 years ago, and we are proud of the role that Canada has played during the following decades.
But it is increasingly obvious that the global order has shifted significantly, and these changes will alter the way we manage a range of global issues.
It is also clear that the current, predominant business model for international development-in essence, the OECD-DAC model-will need to significantly adjust.
In the broad sense, international development is at an important turning point.
I have read the papers prepared for this conference by Messrs. Leipziger, Picciotto and Ms. Davies, all of whom have clearly, and in depth, outlined the key changes that are driving the new global order, and stated by Joseph in his opening remarks this morning.
We know that the players have already changed with the emergence of the BRIC, new donors, including new countries, and the private sector.
We know that the global economic balances have changed where the economies of developing countries will outpace that of developed countries.
We know that the fiscal reality for donors is being challenged across almost all of the OECD.
We know that the security landscape continues to evolve.
We also know that many populations are continually highly vulnerable to natural disasters and conflict.
This calls for a discussion on the role of multilateralism in the new global order, and I commend the conference organizers for this initiative today.
Multilateral institutions were created by and are managed by member states.
They are what we want them to be.
At their best, multilateral organizations can be leaders in their field, bringing expertise, experience and knowledge to difficult development challenges.
Multilateral organizations are key players in global responses to emergency situations and the challenges of fragile states.
In some cases, they extend our reach, allowing us to accomplish more in the developing world than we otherwise could achieve alone.
But multilateral organizations must also be ready for change.
Some are taking important steps.
But, clearly, not all are ready for these challenges, and some are taking important steps.
But the solution is not to create yet more agencies.
Instead, it is up to the institutions that presently exist to renew their mandates, rationalize their operations, focus on what they do best, reduce duplication, and increase their accountability and transparency for those in donor countries demanding full value for their investment dollars.
The changing realities also obligate CIDA, as a government Agency, to change, to work with our multilateral partners in a way that maximizes our investments, shows Canadians that their tax dollars are being put to good use, and delivers on-the-ground, measurable results in the developing world.
Our government, through CIDA, will continue to support and work with multilateral organizations that are effective and efficient and aligned with our government's policies.
A 2009 internal review of CIDA's entire multilateral portfolio outlined aid effectiveness challenges within the multilateral community and must be addressed for multilateral institutions to prove their worth to donors and developing countries alike.
Others, such as DFID, have done the same.
In our review, we noted that multilateral bodies must, on a country by country basis, be better aligned with developing country priorities and systems, and demonstrate results at the country level.
No agenda can hope to succeed or be sustainable without this kind of alignment.
Let me use as an example the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and CIDA's work with the Government of Mozambique.
Through a coordinated and integrated national public health campaign, Canada is helping Mozambique deliver vaccinations, vitamin A, and deworming tablets to more than three million children.
It is a program that brings together vaccinations, micronutrients and public health and will be integrated into the Mozambiquean health system.
It will not deliver each element separately; working in silos is not efficient.By integrating our approach, Canada is assured that our contribution is having maximum impact for the people of Mozambique and delivering a return for Canadian taxpayers who demand value for their money.
Multilateral agencies must also improve their focus on gender equality, focusing on women and girls and environmental sustainability.
More coordination and collaboration-a subject talked about for too many years-must become real at the macro level and on the ground, between all partners, not only multilateral organizations but among donor countries as well.
And, overall organizational effectiveness must be enhanced.
I know that the measures I have outlined today represent significant and challenging steps forward.
But they are also necessary measures, and timely too.
In November, world leaders will meet in Busan, at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.
There, I believe, the debate should essentially centre on not aid effectiveness but development effectiveness, as has been stated in the paper by Robert Picciotto.
In the lead-up to that forum, we all have an opportunity to do our own homework by examining our own roles in international development and making changes where necessary.
This will not be easy.
Self-analysis forces us to ask tough questions of ourselves and make the necessary tough decisions.In the current environment of very tight fiscal realities, all donors will increasingly only make the investments that offer the best returns and are able to demonstrate this.
This is not about investing in organizations-it is about investing in outcomes and results.
We need cost effective approaches and new innovative ways to do things.
Programs and actions need to determine their worth in the work they do and the measurable results they achieve.
We need results that foster inclusive and transparent ownership and ensure needed policy reforms take root.
Above all else, results that are measurable in meaningful ways.
This is what the UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health, co-chaired by Prime Minister Harper, was all about-unprecedented accountability from all donors and developing countries, based on common goals and a common set of health indicators by which to track progress.
This is critically important.
How can we properly measure results without common indicators that apply equally to all donors-from government agencies to private sector organizations to multilateral bodies?
The answer is, we can't.
Going forward, we, at CIDA, will be looking at our investments to make sure we reduce the reporting burden on partner countries, but also to make sure we are measuring the right things.
This will allow us to report on results in a way that is transparent, balanced, and focused on the country level.
But also in a way that lets results help us determine what investments work best.
In doing so, we must remember that there is no cookie-cutter approach to reporting, and each partner country will have unique circumstances.
Fragile states present particularly severe challenges-both in reporting and in development-exacerbated by conflict, instability, man-made crises and natural disasters.
Worldwide, 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by repeated cycles of political and criminal violence.
Not a single Millennium Development Goal has been reached in low-income fragile or conflict-affected countries, where 77 percent of children are not in primary school, 70 percent of infant deaths occur, and 65 percent of people are without water.
And so, without sounding like my glass is half empty, this is the reality we face.
Because fragile states require security, and ultimately peace and stable governments, more is required of us than delivering aid alone.
Canada's whole-of-government approach in Afghanistan that saw military, police, diplomatic and aid actions working together is a good example of how we must engage with fragile states across a broad front.
This implies fundamentally rethinking how we approach our programming, combining both short- and longer-term intervention.
We are committed to long-term engagement on a country's priorities, primarily to strengthen education and health outcomes for children and youth, address the root causes of food insecurity, foster inclusive and sustainable economic growth, while building the foundations for effective governance.
CIDA will increasingly look at a country's strategies, policies and plans that are more than aspirational to foster sustainable development.
We will encourage recipient countries to increasingly contribute to their own country's education and health systems and economic growth within their national budgets as their own national resources grow.
This will include building national systems, capacity and institutions.
Only in this way will sustainable development be entrenched to the long-term benefit of the people.
In our bilateral and multilateral engagements, CIDA will make decisions based on what is in Canada's interests, effectiveness, and getting results that lead to sustainable outcomes that include local ownership, and we will target our primary focus on women and girls.
This is the framework in our aid effectiveness agenda.
In it, we have adopted fundamental principles that make us more focused, more efficient, more accountable, and that enable us to address some of the key challenges ahead.
We have clearly defined where we can make the most difference by choosing 20 countries of focus, and Cabinet will review the countries to further our whole-of-government approach and to ensure that Canada's interests are being respected.
We have taken steps to increase our efficiency and effectiveness-steps that Canadians who fund us expect-by decentralizing our operations, by putting more people in the field, and by creating smarter programs that make the most out of every dollar we invest in global development.
And we have identified steps to become more transparent and accountable.
Accountability in development is multifaceted, and, at times, difficult to reconcile.
Donors and partner countries must be accountable to their citizens, absolutely, but both must also be accountable to each other.
Transparency underpins these accountabilities.
With this in mind, today I am pleased to announce the open data portal on the CIDA website that will make our searchable database of roughly 3,000 projects quick and simple to access.
The open data portal will put our country strategies, evaluations, audits, and annual statistical and results reports within easy reach.
It will be updated regularly to show our progress by region, country, program, sector, and status.
We are proud of our work and believe that the best way to demonstrate value for money is to communicate our results in an open and accountable way.
This is a natural step forward in the ongoing evolution of our Agency and of our aid effectiveness agenda and it follows the introduction three years ago of CIDA's annual Development for Results Report.
We need to constantly seek out new and innovative ways to do business, find cost effective approaches that prove their worth, and deliver outcomes that are both meaningful and measurable.
As CIDA moves forward into the next phase of its aid effectiveness agenda, our focus will increasingly shift to an area that makes our progress more obvious and much easier to track-results.
Not simply results, as measured by statistics, but results, as measured by what matters and achieves the outcomes we work to achieve.
As Josette Sheeran, the head of the WFP, said to me last week, "Bev, you taught me about the difference between outputs and outcomes."
You see, for me outputs are the measure and steps we need to realize the outcomes we set out to achieve.
Real, sustainable, concrete outcomes will mean our investment dollars are paying off and improving lives in developing countries.
We, at CIDA, have more work ahead.
We will strengthen our collaboration and be open to new ways on how we do business with our partners, including those in the multilateral community.
And an important first step is to work collectively on how we define results more realistically, on how we monitor them more diligently, and on how we report them more clearly.
We must be open and smart about the risks we are taking, because good risk management is a key contribution to optimizing results as well as to proper accountability.
And we must pay greater attention to individual country contexts so we can best determine appropriate solutions.
This is the new way forward for CIDA because, quite frankly, business as usual-the status quo-is no longer enough in a changing global order.
All actors, including multilateral institutions, must be willing to adapt, to change, and to learn from hard lessons in order to increase the value of our aid and its impact on development outcomes.
As I have stated, Canadians expect no less from us, and we must expect no less from those we work with.
And so, the future of multilateral development cooperation will evolve as the global order and the dynamics of challenges we face together change.
Change, as they say, is inevitable.
But let me assure you that Canada is prepared to do its part to ensure that our multilateral engagement in development, with each partner we chose, is effective and stronger in the years ahead.
Thank you for your attention.
