RECOMMENDATION 1

The Government of Canada’s new international assistance policy should reflect a transparent evaluation of the countries of focus approach and whether it has enhanced the impact and effectiveness  of Canada’s development assistance. In particular, the evaluation should address the selection criteria that have been used to determine Canada’s countries of focus and development partners, clarify how those criteria resulted in the existing lists of countries, and indicate the conditions that would trigger the addition or withdrawal of countries from those lists in the future. The evaluation should also assess the results of concentrating 90% of all bilateral resources in 25 countries.

RECOMMENDATION 2

The Government of Canada should evaluate the personnel recruitment and rotation policies used by Global Affairs Canada so as to ensure that there is substantive regional and sector-based development expertise within the department.

RECOMMENDATION 3

The Government of Canada should ensure that its new international assistance policy establishes strategic objectives to guide Canadian development cooperation for at least the next 15 years, consistent with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. That policy should take into account:

• all sources of development finance;
• all forms of development cooperation; and
• the development roles played by all actors in Canadian society.

RECOMMENDATION 4

The Government of Canada should ensure that there is a branch within Global Affairs Canada that is dedicated solely to development policy research, analysis and evaluation.

RECOMMENDATION 5

The Government of Canada should, within the next year, publish a long-term engagement strategy for each of its bilateral and regional cooperation programs, and then ensure that those country and regional strategies are updated and evaluated at regular intervals.

RECOMMENDATION 6

As part of its long-term engagement with development partners, the Government of Canada should favour long-term and predictable funding arrangements, prioritizing projects that involve local actors – including local civil society organizations – and that respond to needs identified by them, with a particular emphasis on initiatives that are aimed at empowering women and girls.

RECOMMENDATION 7

The Government of Canada should aspire to a plan that would see Canada spending 0.70% of its gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance (ODA) by 2030. The first stage of that plan should see the government spending 0.35% of GNI on ODA in 2020.