The Constrained International Development Agency

Here we go again. A recent report by Carleton University professors Chris Brown and Edward Jackson has been raging through CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) this summer and questions once again the very validity of the organization. Discouraged agency employees seriously wonder how many more body blows the agency can take before people just leave the building.To be sure, there's much in the Jackson-Brown paper that has clear merit, as did the Senate Committee report that came out on CIDA three years ago now. It concludes with a query: "Can a similar transformation occur in Canada, or should we simply abolish CIDA and start over again, as the Senate committee suggests?" They then close with four options:

1. Transform the existing CIDA
2. Give the aid file to Foreign Affairs instead
3. Distribute CIDA's functions among existing organizations
4. Create a special operating agency (SOA)

CIDA, as an organization, has become the favourite "whipping boy" in Parliament and endured relentless criticism. Its employees, almost all of them fine public servants, are running out of oxygen from living in a sealed glass house. Non-governmental organizations presently look at the agency as if they were a kind of suitor that forgets what it loved about the organization in the first place. And the public? Well, by and large, they don't even know what "CIDA" stands for.My take on all this?  Enough already!  Much of what Jackson-Brown and the Senate has said is valid but is beside the point. CIDA isn't the only international development political institution that's going through trouble establishing its agenda. I just returned from Italy, where discussions with personnel from their own version of CIDA reveal an organization at sea. The United States, with a clear sense of leadership in the generosity field, has nevertheless failed to live up to its own targets.All this is to say that CIDA is not alone, and in fact is facing a crisis surrounding development to poorer nations that is systemic even in groups like the G8. Critics of the organization and its people regularly fail to take this larger context into account.So, for what it's worth, here's my suggestion, one arrived at following six months of strenuous consultations with NGOs, international development ministries in other countries, and well known voices in the field from Joe Clark to Paul Martin, and from Jeffrey Sachs to Tony Blair: Let CIDA be CIDA. Too simple I know, but it effectively says what needs to be said.Since its inception in 1968, the organization has never had a legislated mandate governing its activities around the world. It is an Agency, not a federal department, and as such it falls under the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for its ultimate direction. Finally, CIDA has never had a senior minister, one capable of forming independent thought and capable of holding her/his own against other powerful members of cabinet. All this is just to say that CIDA has never been given the tools to set its own direction; somebody else always governed its destiny, not the agency itself or its capable people. It's had too many critics and not enough champions at upper levels.I once had a friend living in the hills of South Africa who, in desiring to purchase a new car, wrote one manufacturer of a well-made product and asked how much power the engine produced.  Two weeks later he received a one word reply from the president of the company: Enough. This is what CIDA has never had, and because of it, critics have been coming from every direction. The real answer for Canada's governmental humanitarian arm is not found in endless reforms. Give it a senior minister, with a clear mandate and a full department and it will be enough. It's time to stop blaming CIDA for what it can't control. A string of prime ministers has been hesitant to give it the tools required to do its work. Focus the criticism at that level.Starting after Labour Day we will be undertaking a series of posts on what the new CIDA should look like and how best to resource its dedicated employees with the tools required to engage a needy world. Stay tuned.