FAAE Committee Report

We need to be a lot clearer about what we mean by democratic development and good governance. We need to understand why we’re doing it, and we need to learn and apply what we’ve learned. … good governance does not drop from the sky; it is not a gift; it cannot be imposed. Good governance is unlikely to flow from a collection of disparate, time-bound projects offered by a dozen ill-coordinated donors. It cannot be transferred holus-bolus like pizza from a delivery truck. It must be earned and learned, not just by those for whom it is intended but by those who would help them. Effective application of the full governance agenda as we now understand it is still pretty much undocumented, untested, and uncoordinated. And it is far too young for dogmatism and certainty. It is old enough, however, that mistakes should not be repeated, and it is important enough that lessons, both positive and negative, should be documented, learned, remembered, and applied.

- Ian Smillie, development consultant[1]

The challenges of attaining sustainable human development for the whole of the world’s growing population are daunting on many fronts. As development thinking continues to evolve, it now includes attention to the democratic and governance dimensions of development as essential to its progress. The role of development assistance from outside donors is being challenged at the same time as to its quantity, quality, and effectiveness. And this is especially true of assistance to the democratic and governance elements of international assistance which are the subject of this report.

The Committee believes that Canada should contribute more to tackling such challenges both overall and in the particular case of democratic development. We stand by our report adopted unanimously on June 9, 2005 — and concurred in unanimously by the House of Commons on June 28, 2005 — which called both for planned increases in official development assistance (ODA) to 0.5% of GNP by 2010 and 0.7% of GNP by 2015, and for a legislated mandate for Canadian ODA.[2] Along with that, we believe that Canada should substantially increase its commitment to supporting democratic development. The Committee emphasizes that such an increase should in no way come at the expense of support for other areas of development related to achieving the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the world community in 2000.

The idea of assisting democratic development internationally is appealing but not self-evident as to definition or realization. In Chapter 1, the Committee therefore reviews the state of democracy and democratization, going on to draw out the connections between democratic development, universal human rights, improved governance, socio-economic development and poverty reduction. The Committee calls for a Canadian approach to promoting democratic development in other countries that is based on a broad conception of democracy that includes attention to its quality and sustainability.

Chapter 2 reviews the global field of democracy assistance and addresses the key critical challenges facing all providers of democracy assistance. Prominent among those are the large deficits which persist in terms of context-specific knowledge and credible evaluation of the effectiveness of assistance. The Committee suggests ways in which Canada might exercise leadership in this area. In Chapter 3, the Committee draws on insights from its meetings outside Canada with European, American, and multilateral donors, as well as with international experts, to enrich the learning process, that as Ian Smillie pointed out to us, is so needed in this field.