bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2014) — Winter 2014–15 // Hiver 2014-2015, pp. 9–11
Democracy has been a priority of Canadian foreign policy for longer than I can remember. Albeit with varying institutional arrangements and funding levels, both DFAIT and CIDA (and the IDRC, and Elections Canada) have been implementing policy advocacy and programming initiatives related to democracy promotion since the 1990s. The Harper government’s values-based approach to foreign policy has placed democracy alongside freedom, human rights and the rule of law as “values that define this country” and whose global enjoyment the newly merged DFATD is tasked with promoting.
Foreign Service Officers, together with other public servants, play a key role in fulfilling this task. While MIL and START have primary responsibilities for policy and programming related to democracy promotion, FPDS at missions abroad also administer grant programmes for which democracy-support initiatives are eligible — like the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives or the Post Initiative Fund. They identify and recommend allies and partners for Canada among local organizations and political actors, participate in national forums and roundtables on democracy, and report on their host countries’ progress towards democratic consolidation.
Yet, few Foreign Service Officers have thorough knowledge of democracy, and fewer have first-hand field experience of democracy building, particularly in transitional, unstable or fragile states where Canada’s support is concentrated.
After six years as a Foreign Service Officer, I left DFAIT in 2012 — on leave without pay — to join the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), the one and only intergovernmental organization with the sole mandate of supporting democracy worldwide. Strong with 29 Member States, an annual budget around $35 million, and some 170 staff in 16 countries around the world, International IDEA sounded like the ideal place to learn the inner workings of democracy support.
As part of a series of articles on what Foreign Service Officers do while on leave without pay, bout de papier invited me to write about my experience at International IDEA. I wish I could have shared tales of action — explained how we have developed the Electoral Risk Management Tool (ERMTool), a software application that Kenyan officials used to identify and mitigate the risks of elections-related violence in April 2013; how we brought representatives of 60 Haitian political parties to sit at the same table and build consensus on key legislative priorities, including the new law on political parties that was adopted in January 2014; or how we advised the drafters of Tunisia’s new constitution on issues of fundamental rights, the separation of powers and decentralization. These are all highlights of International IDEA’s accomplishments in the last two years, and every member of the big International IDEA family can partake in their success. But the truth is that I was just sitting at my desk. As Kenyans were voting, Haitians were talking and Tunisians were proclaiming a new constitution, I was just sitting at my desk in the Strategic Planning Unit, gauging results against indicators and analyzing how far International IDEA had gone on the long path towards meeting its strategic objectives. It certainly does not make for very telling action shots — but it has made for a lot of learning about democracy, how to support it, and how not to support it. And this is what I have to share with you after two years at International IDEA: the dos and don’ts of democracy support, and what they mean for Canada.
DO remember that democracy isn’t built in a day
Democracy, which International IDEA defines as a system wherein the government is controlled by the people and all citizens are equal in the exercise of that control, can only come about through a long process of institution building that, more often than not, requires some groups to relinquish power (or their aspirations of power) in the interest of other groups. It also takes a cultural shift for all citizens to become equal in the exercise of democratic control over government. Nearly 40 years after the first world conference on women called for the full political participation of women, women still make up only 21% of parliamentarians worldwide — and consolidated democracies, like Canada (with 25%), fare not much better than emerging democracies on that score. Indigenous peoples, ethnic and religious minorities, members of lower castes and other marginalized — or squarely repressed — social groups may also take years to obtain and effectively exercise democratic rights. The Arab Spring of 2011 gave rise to high hopes for the advent of democracy across the Arab world, and the international community rushed in to support Egyptian, Tunisian and Libyan actors in holding democratic elections and drafting democratic constitutions, with ambitious agendas for a quick democratic transition. Three years later, all realize that the path to democracy in the Arab world will be messy at best, and will go on for years, if not decades.
It follows that international actors who wish to support democracy building must be armed with patience. Organizations like International IDEA, whose modus operandi is to work alongside with (not instead of) national institutions throughout democratic reform processes, must plan their support with a multi-year vision that accounts for the ebbs and flows of messy transitions. And they would, if only they could.
DON’T limit your support for democracy building to
short-term initiatives The problem is that most donors plan their financial contributions to democracy support organizations on a short-term basis.
Core funding contributions (ie. money given for an organization to spend wherever it decides — including on things such as office space, computers and support staff) are confirmed every year, with multi-annual funding agreements being the exception rather than the norm. Core funding is also on a downward trend, with donors increasingly preferring to channel their contributions through project grants, where they can decide where and on what activities the money will be spent. Project grants — like STARTS — are generally awarded for short periods of time and made to fit within the donor’s annual fiscal calendar, regardless of the timelines of the democratic reform processes ongoing in the host country.
The result is that democracy support organizations are often trapped in stop-and-go situations, where funding gaps oblige them to downsize or fully interrupt their activities in a country until a new project grant is secured and operations can resume. During those gaps, staff is dismissed or leaves, expertise is lost, national networks of contacts and trust relationships erode, and the multi-year vision that underpins the organization’s engagement in that country falls one step away from achievability. Three one-year grants do not add up to one three-year grant if there is uncertainty in the middle.
DON’T expect that your programmes alone can
change the world There are examples of success stories where lasting impact on a country’s democratic process was achieved through well targeted, short-term, low-cost initiatives. With one publication, two seminars and an address to the Senate, International IDEA was able to influence the new political and electoral laws adopted in Mexico in December 2013, which make it harder for illicit money to make its way into political parties’ finance. With one publication presented to the right civil society organization, International IDEA was able to inform national debate on electoral justice in Indonesia, leading to the adoption of a stronger legal framework for the management of electoral disputes in 2012. But these success stories of “doing a lot with a little” are exceptions. Most successes in democracy support come after years of engagement and cost their share of money.
With fierce competition for project grants, democracy support organizations are sometimes tempted to seduce donors with grand promises of impacts. I have seen proposals, drafted by good-intentioned colleagues, for $200,000 projects that would, over a 12-month period, result in free, fair and credible elections on an entire continent. Even worse: I have seen donors request that we define such grand impact statements, so that they could play them back to their taxpayers to justify the sums awarded to our projects.
As a smart (Canadian) consultant once told us, even if International IDEA were to put all of its annual budget into one single country for the next decade, there is no guarantee that that country would end up being more democratic. While it is pretty safe to assume that providing people with mosquito nets will result in reduced malaria, the relationship between democracy support and actual democratic change is contingent on a multiplicity of external factors, not the least the political will of the country’s leaders. Even when actual democratic change happens, it would be presumptuous for an organization to attribute it solely to its efforts, when so many actors are involved in driving and supporting democratic change in the country. Anyone who promises or claims results above and beyond the boundaries of their project and its direct stakeholders is just trying to seduce you — and if you request it of them, you are just asking to be lured.
DON’T let the big guy hide the small guy
The attempts by democracy support organizations and donors to push the limits of results measurement fits within a broader drive to make international cooperation more efficient. A leader in that area, Canada has developed a reputation of excellence in results-based management and stringency in procurement policies (a glass of wine and a business-class ticket, anyone?).
But the quest for efficiency has also resulted in a streamlining of the number of international organizations in which Canada participates and to which it makes a contribution. I believe the logic was that focusing on a smaller number of larger organizations would enable Canada to reduce the costs of administering its overall partnerships, while maintaining sufficient bang for its buck as a multilateral player.
In the area of democracy support, this approach has its dangers. International IDEA — a relatively small organization — gets value from its capacity to respond to the changing democracy landscape in an agile fashion. Like other small organizations, International IDEA has learned to turn its light footprint into a comparative advantage when it comes to adjusting plans, priorities and resource allocation quickly when the unexpected happens. It also has an easier time than larger organizations in securing the trust of host countries’ national institutions and transferring ownership of its initiatives to them, particularly in those contexts where national leaders are wary of foreign intervention. This creates a niche that larger organizations are just too big to fill.
DON’T see democracy as an isolated issue
As UN institutions and Member States are gearing up to define a new global agenda for development after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015, various concepts related to democracy — such as human rights, rule of law and effective governance — have been part of the discussions, but the inclusion of democracy itself in the new framework is far from secure. Canada’s stance on democracy promotion as a key pillar of foreign policy has also shown signs of wavering in the last couple of years. The 2008 Throne Speech promise to create a new Canadian foundation dedicated to democracy promotion has fallen into oblivion, dedicated units dealing with democracy in former DFAIT and former CIDA have been merged into greater policy areas, and the role of democracy in START programming is being watered down.
With the global balance of power shifting towards Asia, the argument that democracy yields more economic progress than other systems of government has lost its shine — indeed there are few statistics to support it. But the role of democracy remains unchallenged as an enabler of social development, and as the political system that most favours inclusion and peaceful conflict resolution. According to the United Nations’ MY World Survey —a global initiative to inform the discussions on the post-2015 development agenda with the views of citizens from around the world on priority development issues — having honest and responsive governments is the 4th global priority, ahead of food security and water and sanitation. International security, human rights and religious freedom — all leitmotivs of Canadian foreign policy — all flourish better under democratic systems. Let’s hope that Canada and the drafters of the global post-2015 development agenda don’t forget.
Véronique Choquette is a Foreign Service Officer on leave without pay, currently serving as strategic planning officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA).
Without freedom of speech, I cannot talk about
who is stealing my food.”
— Entry for International IDEA’s call for quotes about democracy on International Day of Democracy 2013
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2014) — Winter 2014–15 // Hiver 2014-2015, pp. 9–11. Read the rest of this issue →
