bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2011) — Summer/Fall 2011 // Été/Automne 2011, pp. 5–7
NOTE DE LA REDACTION : L’aide au développement international (ADI) canadienne est cruciale pour la diplomatie canadienne et indispensable pour atteindre les objectifs de notre politique étrangère, mais on ne pourrait nous blâmer de penser autrement, compte tenu du peu de cas qu’il nous arrive d’en faire. Eric Bergbusch demande comment le Canada — le premier grand pays donateur à établir un organisme d’ADI ( Ll’ACDI) — pourrait oublier de souligner son cinquantenaire? Neil Reeder atteste de l’importance de l’engagement de longue date que nous avons pris à l’égard du développement au Honduras, soit d’aider les Honduriens à régler un vif différend d’ordre politique (qui était susceptible de déstabiliser le pays et peut-être même toute la région), et Rolando Ramirez, de CUSO- VSO, nous expose en détail les efforts de soutien des bénévoles canadiens de concert avec l’ACDI et le CRDI en Amérique latine. En outre : trois perspectives concernant l’importance de l’ADI canadienne.
Born of necessity in 1960, this innovative, little agency was the brain-child of two young civil servants — Alan McGill, a war veteran in External Affairs, and Denis Hudon, a Quebec economist in the Finance Department. They were returning from an interdepartmental meeting at Trade & Commerce one day early in 1960 and complaining to one another about the inefficiency of the aid programme’s present set-up. Would it not be better to have a small office, with its own staff, budget, and board of directors, to run the programme as a separate entity? Would that not get rid of these interminable debates between departments which yielded so little?
They decided to put the idea to their respective bosses. In the event, it was Alan McGill’s boss, Dave Taylor, in External Affairs, who took the lead. With strong backing from Wynne Plumptre, a senior official in Finance, Taylor drafted a short, elegant memorandum to cabinet that reflected the common views of interested departments.
The memorandum said that the world was changing and that Canada needed to get on board. “Economic assistance” had acquired a new significance internationally and there would soon be “strong pressures on donors to increase their existing programmes. ..to develop new ones, and to coordinate their efforts with each other and with international organizations….” Another key argument was that “the way aid is given is vital to…[its] success”. The “new approach” the memorandum proposed recognized that aid programmes were still “an integral part of Canada’s foreign policy” and, to an important degree, “[were] moulded by the nature of the relationships between Canada and the recipient countries”. Looking back, one can say they got it just about right.
That was the memo to Cabinet that three ministers in John Diefenbaker’s government, Gordon Churchill at Trade & Commerce, Donald Fleming at Finance, and Howard Green at External Affairs, signed on August 15, 1960. The three ministers had accepted the advice of their officials that running Canada’s still modest but expanding aid programme through an interdepartmental committee (backed by a small unit in the trade department) was no longer feasible. The programme, which had started in Asia under the Colombo Plan, was being asked to take on new projects there, in Africa (as Harold Macmillan’s “winds of change” brought new countries to independence), and in Latin America, where Canada’s Progressive Conservative government wanted to make its mark. Cabinet readily agreed that a new approach was needed to manage an overseas programme of growing size and complexity.
That was the birth of the External Aid Office, Canada’s aid agency — and the world’s first. That was a creative summer altogether as it was also marked by the declaration of Mr. Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights.
The new agency’s head, or Director General (a title then reserved for senior positions such as the head of the FAO), was instructed to run an efficient programme, constantly review OO it, and bring new proposals and Herb Moran argued for proje ideas to Ministers for approval. profits, promote growth and The aid office was to move forward, not stand still. economy; Howard Green fa
Its broader mandate also would alleviate suffering anc looked to the future: it included need live more ft ; cooperation with other government departments, international organizations, and voluntary agencies, as well as emergency assistance. The Director-General, the Deputy Ministers of Finance, External Affairs and Trade & Commerce and the Governor of the Bank of Canada were named to a small board of directors. Others could be added as necessary. Remarkably, that framework remained intact until the 1980s when it fell victim to exaggerated ambitions and petty bureaucratic rivalry. But its lineaments have never disappeared entirely. Its essence is caught today by what is now called a “whole-of-government approach”.
The high degree of continuity in the aid agency’s history has been somewhat obscured by its name-change in 1968. It was then renamed CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) and the Director-General became a President and CEO. The name-change brought one great advantage: it made clear that CIDA, like the External Aid Office, was a separate entity, and not an appendage of External Affairs. A month after Cabinet approval, in September 1960, a tough, independent-minded corporation lawyer from Toronto was named to head the External Aid Office. Herb Moran had come into government a decade earlier and had served as the head of External Affairs’ Economic Division, Ambassador to Turkey, and High Commissioner to Pakistan. He knew about Canada’s early efforts in the field of foreign aid.
Moran got the Aid Office underway that autumn in modest quarters in the Fuller Building, with a staff of 50-60, drawn mainly from the Trade Department, with a few additions from Finance and External Affairs, and several new recruits. Howard Green was the minister made responsible for the External Aid Office, and he and Moran soon established a close rapport. Moran had direct access to the minister and spoke to him frankly, not least when they happened to walk together toward their separate offices from The Roxburgh (then on Laurier Avenue east of Elgin Street, in downtown Ottawa), where they both lived.
With quite different outlooks, they soon engaged in a lively debate on what aid was about, a discussion which continues to this day. Herb Moran argued for projects that would generate profits, promote growth and strengthen a country’s economy; Howard Green favoured measures that would alleviate suffering and help those in greatest need live more fulfilling lives.
Although the ministers and civil servants involved in the exercise in 1960 were aware that they were embarking on a new course, they had no idea that they were setting a precedent and leading the world on a new course. An account prepared by the OECD ects that would generate in 1994 (“The Story of Official d strengthen a country’s Development Assistance” — OCDE/ GD(94)67) tells the tale. Late in ‘avoured measures that 1960, after the External Aid Office 1d help those in greatest was already up and running, the fulfilling lives. OEEC (the OECD’s predecessor) established its Development Assistance Committee — the famous DAC — as a centre for donor coordination, with Peter Towe (later our ambassador in Washington) as Canada’s representative. It was only in the following year that others set up separate aid agencies: in 1961, France created /e ministère de la cooperation, the U.S. its Agency for International Development, and Sweden its International Development Agency. Canada had led the world.
Many Canadians inside and outside government welcomed the creation of the Aid Office, and many applied to join it. From their ranks, Moran hired the engineers, economists and other specialists that the agency’s authors foresaw would be needed. Both Alan McGill and Denis Hudon worked there for a while, the former preferring that job to serving as Howard Green’s foreign policy adviser. (When Howard Green asked for McGill to join him in his office, Herb Moran took McGill’s part, telling Green that McGill could not be spared and that there were plenty of other Foreign Service officers who could serve the Minister!)
Many who joined Moran in the aid office in its early days rose to senior positions in the public service. The agency had many friends in high places. Simplicity and quick decisions marked the agency in its early years. Moran, at the top, liked to boast that he could travel the globe with just one bag in hand containing his essentials — two nylon shirts (which he washed himself) and a bottle of whisky. Mistakes were made then as now, but many believe that the early agency’s improvisations and straightforward style produced as many successes as did the sophisticated concepts and elaborate procedures introduced later on.
Each new Director-General and President/CEO brought his or her own style to the job. Maurice Strong, who followed Moran and who was seen by some as a free-wheeling publicity machine, brought new money and new ideas to the programme — the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Mission Administered Fund are two examples. Paul Gérin- Lajoie, already famous for his contribution to Quebec education, took a more intellectual approach. He also made CIDA (as it was known, by then) the most bilingual institution in the federal government and ensured that a fair share of Canadian aid procurement was found in Quebec.
Later leaders made their own contributions, always under close scrutiny and sometimes under attack. Not that the Aid Office/CIDA ever lacked critics. Except at the start, there were always businessmen, journalists, academics, NGOs and, increasingly, politicians who felt they could do a better job or knew a better way of doing it. A cynic might note that the improvements they proposed frequently assigned a bigger share of the pie to their own sector or area of interest, if not to themselves.
Put aside the controversies and look at the achievements — after 50 years. “I was trained in Canada” is a proud affirmation I have often heard in developing countries — from railway managers and water engineers to district nurses, journalists and mayors. “We got this from Canada” is a similar line — for barrels a women’s cooperative uses to render fat for candles, equipment to fight malaria or AIDS, a village pump, a major dam, an essential power line.
The sceptics are right when they say some aid went wrong and produced perverse results. They are wrong when they paint all aid with a single statistical brush, often fashioned for them by their time at the World Bank or Monetary Fund. The evidence on the ground shows that a great deal went right and endures.
Looking back, Canadians have reason to take pride in the work of the agency. Last year would have been a good time to celebrate its achievements and particularly the many Canadians from all parts of the country who, with their dedicated local counterparts, brought expertise, idealism and commitment to the betterment of the countries in which they worked. Some worked for government and others for private companies. Some came as volunteers, working for slim returns. And they continue to come today.
Their engagement has been remarkable. Many have put their health and security at risk. Numbers have died or been injured on the job — from early on to the present day. The puzzle is why no one thought it worthwhile to mark the occasion. Were we too modest or too forgetful to celebrate our development assistance agency’s leadership and signal achievements after half a century?
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2011) — Summer/Fall 2011 // Été/Automne 2011, pp. 5–7. Read the rest of this issue →
