The Auditor General has noted a lack of interest among senior Global Affairs Canada officials when it comes to measuring the results of the feminist policies that guide the country’s foreign aid.

“We found no evidence that senior managers regularly reviewed gender equality outcomes or progress towards policy goals,” the report says. one of the reports by the country’s Comptroller Karen Hogan on Monday.

His office had great difficulty obtaining the necessary documents for his review from Global Affairs Canada (GAC), which is responsible for international aid. Files were lost on former employees’ computers, making it impossible to track some projects funded from $3.5 billion in bilateral development assistance to poor countries.

The main conclusion of the Auditor General is that the federal government cannot demonstrate how this aid has improved outcomes for women and girls. An internal audit conducted in 2021 revealed similar issues, the report said.

school attendance of girls

“This means that management has not and could not examine the full impact of the programs,” the report said, blaming GAC’s management.

For example, she notes that the ministry has not evaluated improving school attendance in countries that fund projects aimed at making schools more welcoming for young girls, such as B. the installation of toilets.

Almost half of the 60 projects examined by the Auditor General were not adequately evaluated using criteria derived from the government’s feminist policies. Since 2017, this value must be at the heart of projects funded by Canada. Out of a total of 26 indicators the ministry created to track progress, 24 “measured no results”.

The federal government narrowly missed two of the policy’s three targets, namely to allocate 15% of the funds to gender equality projects and to send 50% of the funds to sub-Saharan Africa. According to M^Me Hogan missed the ministry an opportunity to “demonstrate the value of international aid”.

The minister defends himself

Although all of their recommendations were accepted by the Department, the Minister responsible disputed the Auditor General’s main finding. International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan asserted that his field trips had sufficiently convinced him of the advances in feminism judging by the local partners, he says.

“In some projects that I have visited, for example in Senegal, we were able to show exactly what percentage [de succès des filles retournant en classe]. What we couldn’t do is actually go back [au ministère] with the information and to present a full portrait,” said the minister in a press frenzy.

The Conservative Party spokesman on the issue ridiculed Sajjan’s comments and criticized the government for “not bothering” to measure the results of its policies

“I find it crazy to think that you have to believe the Secretary for International Development when he says that his trips abroad give him enough knowledge about the results of these projects,” Tory MP Garnett Genuis said.

The duty reported in 2020 that since the dissolution of the respected French-speaking foreign aid agency known as the Canadian International Development Agency, GAC’s senior management has promoted mostly its English-speaking majority executives.

The Auditor General also released reports on other issues on Monday. She closes for example that the federal government cannot prove that high-speed Internet access in the country has been sufficiently improved. A “digital divide” still exists, to the detriment of rural areas and indigenous communities, she notes.

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