December 1, 2011
The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, concluded a successful trip to the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4), where she reinforced Canada's priority of putting long-term sustainable results at the centre of its development efforts.
"I was proud to demonstrate that Canada has taken bold steps to make its aid more effective at this important international forum," said Minister Oda. "Canada's aid effectiveness actions of focusing on results, value for money and sustainability of our international assistance are now part of the global discussion."
At the forum, Minister Oda highlighted Canada's concrete actions to strengthen accountability for results by all stakeholders at the country and sector level. She cited Canada's G8 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health, co-chaired by Prime Minister Harper, as setting a new global standard for ensuring country ownership and accountability for results in development.
At the conference, Minister Oda announced that CIDA has joined the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) to improve the public availability and accessibility of information on aid, further underscoring Canada's commitment to transparency. The IATI is consistent with the Government of Canada's Open Government initiative under which CIDA is taking important steps to give Canadians improved access to open data and open information. Through CIDA's Open Data, the Agency already publishes statistical and project-level information on international aid activities in searchable machine-readable formats and project-level information for CIDA's countries of focus through web-based geomapping.
Minister Oda also detailed Canada's long-term commitment to increasing food security. In particular, she outlined the importance of increasing agricultural production and productivity, providing quality nutritional food, and recognizing the role of empowering women to increase food security and sustainable economic growth. She noted that Canada was the first country to honour its G8 L'Aquila commitment by fully disbursing its $1.18 billion L'Aquila package.
During the forum, Minister Oda and Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd signed an agreement to strengthen the Canada—Australia partnership on international cooperation. She also met Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Sung-Hwan and signed a letter of intent to strengthen the two countries' cooperation in international development.
"We are forging cooperation partnerships with those who share Canada's values and are committed to effective development," said Minister Oda.
In endorsing the Busan Outcome Document (PDF, 199 KB, 12 pages), Minister Oda welcomed the commitment from all development partners to adopt the shared principles of country ownership, results, transparency, and accountability that underpin the new Global Partnership for Effective Development.
Minister Oda concluded her trip stating, "It is important for Canada and all donors that we leave this conference with a renewed commitment to focus on aid accountability, value-for-dollars, and real results."
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For more information, media should contact:
Justin Broekema
Press Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation
Telephone: 819-953-6238
Email: justin.broekema@acdi-cida.gc.ca
Media Relations Office
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Telephone: 819-953-6534
Email: media@acdi-cida.gc.ca
The Government of Canada's Aid Effectiveness Agenda emphasizes focus, efficiency, and accountability for results to contribute to the sustainable reduction of poverty in developing countries. Canada has actively engaged in the development and implementation of international aid effectiveness commitments enshrined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008) and continues to work toward their achievement.
Meeting our commitment to aid transparency, Canada has:
- Joined the Open Government Partnershipthat promotes transparency, empowers citizens and harnesses new technologies to strengthen governance.
- to help partner countries achieve fiscal transparency and improve accountability to their own citizens
- Signed onto the International Aid Transparency Initiative and committed to making information about aid spending easier to access, use and understand.
- Launched CIDA's Open Data portal—a dynamic and searchable database of information on CIDA-funded aid projects.
The UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health, chaired by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, is a concrete example of putting country-ownership and accountability for results at the centre of a development priority. This commission, which was built around national leadership, strengthening capacity and reducing reporting burdens, established a simple set of tracer indicators for the health sector to enable all stakeholders to actively pursue common goals and outcomes on maternal, newborn, and child health.
Canada, for its part, has already acted on the Commission's recommendations by incorporating the eleven core indicators into its performance framework and by working to advance the implementation of the recommendations among all who have a stake in maternal, newborn and child health. By putting people and results at the core, addressing accountability and transparency, and bringing coherence to country-led priorities, the Commission has become a model for effective international cooperation. All our partners should look to this example and work together to do the same in other sectors.
To deliver aid more effectively, Canada:
- Untied all international assistance, including food aid.
- Increased impact and reduced fragmentation by focusing Canadian assistance geographically and thematically.
- Aligned all country programs with partner country plans and priorities and worked with partner country systems.
- Assessed our multilateral investments for relevance, institutional effectiveness, development results, and adherence to aid effectiveness principles.
- Placed women and girls at the centre of our agenda to address inequities and multiply development results.
- Canada has spearheaded innovative financing and programming, such as:
- an innovative program administrated by the GAVI Alliance, the Advance Market Commitment (MGM) which seeks to protect the lives of the world's poorest children by accelerating the introduction of a pneumococcal vaccine in developing countries
- Purchase for Progress pilots in both Ghana and Afghanistan that use the World Food Programme's food procurement to create and enhance markets for food commodities grown locally by low-income or small-holder farmers
- Canada is also supporting research and development on practical, breakthrough solutions to critical development challenges, such as:
- Canadian International Food Security Research Fund funds applied research to help farmers in the developing world to increase food security
- Grand Challenges Canada working to address five critical barriers to health by supporting global partnerships to solve the developing world's most difficult and pressing health challenges
- Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Challenge Programs, like HarvestPlus and the Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security program, harness the power of research to reduce micronutrient malnutrition and overcome threats of changing climate on achieving food security
Canada's Aid Effectiveness Agenda
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