If partnerships between charities and mining companies represent the future of foreign aid in Canada, some of the key players will need a clearer road map about what the federal government wants to achieve.
And taxpayers should be asking for the same thing. Otherwise, the new Canadian International Development Agency — which has just been folded into the department of foreign affairs — could become bogged down with some of the problems of the old CIDA, only with more private-sector involvement. It would also represent a lost opportunity to get the best out of public-private partnerships.
In fact, as aid becomes more complicated — with more partnerships involving private companies and trade considerations added to the mix — the potential increases for development outcomes to become muddier and potentially mired in problems.
The redesign of how foreign aid is delivered provides an opportunity to start fresh with clear policy and means to let Canadians know whether it works.
Lack of policy clarity and measurable outcomes were among some of the concerns raised by CIDA minister Julian Fantino about Canadian aid to Haiti last fall before that aid was placed under review. Officials with some of the non-governmental organizations working on CIDA pilot projects with mining companies — which Fantino touts as the way of the future — say they have similar concerns about lack of clarity around CIDA’s new private partnership approach.
“One of the main challenges is that CIDA initiated a number of [pilot] projects without having a clear policy framework in place for what it wanted to achieve,” said Chris Eaton, executive director of the World University Service of Canada, one of three Canadian NGOs to work on development pilot projects with mining companies. WUSC’s project, in Ghana, which has had good results, is being done with Rio Tinto Alcan.
Eaton said the project has been a positive learning experience and WUSC would get involved in another one, under the right circumstances.
“We all have to be extremely careful. But I would say there are lots of mining companies who get this. These are the kinds of companies we would like to interact with in terms of our work.”
But Eaton said greater policy clarity about private-sector partnerships is necessary, and he is concerned the move to fold CIDA into foreign affairs, although it would ultimately be positive, could slow things down.
At a time of massive change in the way the federal government provides foreign aid, it is more important than ever that the federal government enunciates a clear set of goals and guidelines about what it hopes to achieve.
And, although Fantino has taken many opportunities to talk about CIDA in recent months, what exactly that future of foreign aid will look like remains less than clear. Last week in an article headlined “Why CIDA merged with Foreign Affairs” that ran in the Globe and Mail, Fantino talked about Canada’s history of foreign aid and its commitment to “invest Canadian tax dollars in a prudent, transparent and accountable way.”
He also mentioned the growing value of remittances sent by Canadians to family in the developing world and a wish to maximize Canadian developments by “leveraging private-sector dollars and expertise.” What he didn’t say, exactly, was why CIDA has merged with Foreign Affairs and how the change might shift the way development is done.
Some NGOs say they have been left parsing Fantino’s many public statements and speeches trying to get a better sense of the future.
“We are trying to understand and unpack what it is they exactly mean by their strategy,” said Wendy Therrien, director of policy at World Vision Canada, who noted that different speeches by Fantino “seem to say different things.”
World Vision is also involved in a partnership with a mining company. World Vision’s experience in a small Peruvian town, said Therrien, has been largely positive, and the NGO is assessing whether it will get involved in another project with a mining company.
“The project is a good project, but there are lots of things to take into consideration about whether you would do such a project again.”
