Challenging the Question of African Aid:

Opportunities for Open Data in Improving Aid Effectiveness

Christopher Slothouber

<chris@dreaming.org>

POL 1101 C

Professor Luc Turgeon

December 18, 2010

 African Aid Effectiveness 2

Challenging the Question of African Aid:

Opportunities for Open Data in Improving Aid Effectiveness

To increase or decrease aid to Africa? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler

in a time of austerity to reduce spending on Official Development Assistance (ODA)

and condemn a continent to its own devices because of past failures, or increase our

ODA to GDP ratio in unrealistic naiveté to spur development? Indeed, the question

of development aid to Africa cannot be examined in isolation, as the answer does not

fall so neatly between these two extremes. As the serpents of security, diplomacy,

and development continue to intertwine in an increasingly globalized world, the

question of aid spending demands a more nuanced examination and determination.

With the totality of African states running the gamut of development activity, from

reactive humanitarian crisis response to long-term state-building projects, a simple

black and white all-encompassing prescription is difficult. To paint all African

foreign aid with one broad stroke of increased or decreased commitments is thus

problematic. Given the complexity and intermingling of various responsibilities in

lifting Africa out of poverty, it is therefore prudent to examine the larger context of

the approach to administering and delivering aid, how the different agencies of

development and defence interact, and a possible prescription for improving

effectiveness and efficiency in foreign aid. Using Canada as a model, this paper seeks
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to examine how standardizing reporting data formats among foreign assistance

actors, combined with information age proactive disclosure, represents an

opportunity to improve aid effectiveness in Africa and, by extension, the rest of the

developing world.

In 2005, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

(DFAIT) released an International Policy Statement (IPS) defining Canada's long-

term goals of approaching security, development, and diplomacy through an

integrated, or “whole-of-government” (WGA) approach. The IPS set out that Canada

would see the Department of National Defence (DND), DFAIT, and the Canadian

International Development Agency (CIDA), among others, work together to pursue

coordinated post-conflict development efforts. Aptly named "3D" for the three Ds of

defence, diplomacy, and development, this approach to Canada's foreign

engagement has been maintained by the successive Conservative government.

Among other reasons, the integrated approach is favored because it seeks to

eliminate cross-purpose inefficiencies in how aid is planned and delivered, vertically

aligning the goals of each agency involved in the life cycle of foreign engagement.

This is especially important given the fluidity of the status of a recipient country in

what the OECD (2010) terms the “spectrum of peace interventions” (p. 2).

Although Canada is engaged in few areas where all three 3D actors are

involved equally, the results of joint efforts between CIDA, DFAIT, and DND have
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been mixed. In an article for a Canadian defence and foreign affairs think tank,

retired military officer Lehre (2006) opined that relational difficulties between DND

and the other agencies has prevented the implementation of 3D principles (par. 9).

Patrick and Brown (2007) reflect on numerous challenges to the full implementation

of WGA in Canada, including lack of joint analysis and reporting between the

relevant actors and the lack of an authoritative inter-agency strategy blueprint (pp.

57, 60). Although staff secondment have achieved some level of institutional cross-

pollination, lack of consistent information sharing has hampered inter-agency

cooperation (p. 67). There remains among the different government actors a lack of

coherence in direction due to the absence of consensus in acknowledging Canada's

reasons for involvement in various countries and our long-term goals and vision for

these engagements (p. 57). Patrick and Brown conclude that Canada needs to

develop further facilities through which government-wide interoperability can be

practically implemented (p. 75).

While more wholesome implementation of the WGA doctrine in dealing with

foreign aid is largely a question of political will and will ultimately need to be

addressed by the Prime Minister and cabinet, there remains the question of how 3D

and WGA can be in practice more successfully implemented. By far the most

challenging aspect of this interagency endeavor are the challenges relating to

information-sharing (Patrick & Brown, 2007, p. 67). Given different operational

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realities breeding vastly varied and incongruous reporting schemes, the sharing of

one of the most important commodities in addressing foreign development, data, has

been hampered. Without common reporting regimes, timely access, and data

interchange standards among CIDA, DFAIT, DND, and other government actors

involved in the aid process, information crucial to the efficient delivery has put these

actors at odds with each other (p. 70). Smith's (2007) reflections that DND and CIDA

are working at odds confirms this notion (p. 7). Moving toward a common data

exchange format, or open data format, would accelerate the free and timely flow of

information among the WGA partners and present later opportunities for public

accountability (Simon, 2010, pp. 229, 235). Adopting an open data format would thus

be beneficial to inter-agency coordination in the planning and delivery of foreign

assistance.

In his article entitled "The shifting politics of foreign aid," Woods (2005) points

out that many competing interests currently affect the allocation and distribution of

aid projects, especially political and security (p. 396). Faust (2010) demonstrates a

strong correlation between political transparency and susceptibility to interference,

noting that donor countries with higher levels of transparency more often allocate

aid to countries with better institutional performance and that are better suited as

recipients, while governments with lower accountability to their constituency are

more susceptible to special interests and more often allocate aid to countries with
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weaker institutions (p. 23). Given the democratic transparency benefits of open data

(Smith, 2010, p. 231), an initiative allowing public access to CIDA data sets and other

reporting would work toward creating more efficient aid.

Efficient coordination of data among the WGA agencies would allow for

consistent and timely access of aid spending data by Parliament, where members,

and its other creatures, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), would be

able to better exercise their duties in scrutinizing public spending, fulfilling their

democratic duty. If the recent demands by German parliamentarians for more

information about aid recipient country institutions and their performance are

representative (Faust, 2010, p. 11), the availability of such robust data in Canada

would be welcomed by Canadian elected officials.

Although Faust notes that the Japanese government has examined the

possibility of proactively providing the public with foreign aid data sets in order to

address what Woods (2005) termed “aid fatigue” (p. 401), issues of privacy and

confidentiality were cited as impediments to more robust data disclosure (Faust,

2010, p. 12). The Library of Parliament's report (2010) on open data implementation

in Canada notes that levels of government have addressed privacy and

confidentiality concerns through various avenues, including licensing agreements

that protect the integrity of the data source. In particular, Natural Resources Canada

(NRCAN), in a program to make available raw geographic survey data, has

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developed a set of public licensing agreements to govern the dissemination of

government data, addressing Crown copyright, confidentiality, and intellectual

property rights (p. 6). While data relating to aid development contracts and other

potentially sensitive data stemming from foreign assistance might present a more

significant challenge in the legal department, the opportunities for operational

efficiency and political accountability speak for themselves. Many international

accountability watchdogs and NGOs, such as the International Aid Transparency

Network (IATI), AccessInfo, EuroDad, and Oxfam have all pointed to current aid

transparency deficiencies and the opportunity for proactive disclosure regimes to

address these deficiencies (Faust, 2010, p. 10).

As reported by the Library of Parliament (2010), proactive disclosure through

government open data initiatives is on the rise in Canada and internationally, and

represent a huge leap forward in political accountability. Faust's (2010) data clearly

demonstrates the correlation between high levels of political accountability and more

numerous and effective foreign assistance. Given that the successful launch of

Canadian foreign assistance public access data sets is dependent on a standardized,

extensible open data interchange model being adopted internally by the WGA actors

of CIDA, DFAIT, DND, and others, there is thus a two-fold compelling motivation to

move ahead with standardizing reporting and data formats across the WGA

spectrum. Adding to these motivations are the opportunities in foreign assistance

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innovation for extending the open data interchange model for use by multilateral

organizations and international non-governmental actors. Woods (2005) notes that

aid delivery actor overlap and lack of coordination often diminishes the effectiveness

foreign assistance engagement (p. 396). If the twin-pronged benefits of adopting an

open data format standard, namely increased WGA coordination and opportunities

for democratic transparency, can be brought to bear internationally in addressing

similar overlap and lack of coordination on a global level, Canada could play a

leadership role in working with existing reporting schemes, such as those developed

by the World Bank, IMF, and OECD, to extend them with interchangeable reporting

and data standards. Moving to improve global aid delivery could also address

Woods' prescription for “shared, streamlined reporting requirements” in helping

alleviate cross-purpose aid work among international aid players (pp. 408-9).

With a working model at home, Canada would then have the potential to play

clearinghouse for foreign assistance data interchange research and innovation. One

such foreign assistance innovation could see aid and security actors nimbly interface

with foreign aid recipients in exchanging crucial operational information, a boon in a

time of crisis where humanitarian aid depends on the timely exchange of on-the-

ground realities. This could support such initiatives as the worldwide “911” dispatch

system advocated by Dr. Keith Martin (2010), where WGA actors would assess in

tandem a response in disaster situations, engaging various resources such as DND's

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Disaster Assistance Response Team and CIDA's long-term redevelopment programs.

Other compound benefits to a proactive open data regime combined with a data

standard shared among the WGA actors include opportunities for academic research

(Faust, 2010, p. 5), an improved tender process for business when submitting

proposals for aid projects, and public-private partnerships in making foreign

assistance more relevant to Canadians. An example of the latter might be a company

being granted a license to create a web-based application that would allow for

Canadians to contribute funds toward certain foreign development projects by

manipulating data direct from CIDA. Such partnerships, often termed 'mash-ups',

have begun to unfold in jurisdictions where open data regimes have been put into

place (Library of Parliament, 2010, p. 3). Subsequently, allowing developing

countries to draw upon Canada's open data building blocks would have a beneficial

effect in building democratic accountability capital abroad, continuing a tradition of

Canadian expertise as established by such undertakings as international election

administration and oversight under the auspices of Elections Canada.

Instead of focusing solely on dollar amounts in addressing the call for foreign

aid reform, it would be prudent to examine how aid is delivered. In acknowledging

the interconnected reality of foreign assistance from a Canadian perspective, one

finds that Canada is faces significant challenges in adopting an effective WGA. In

addressing these challenges, a real opportunity exists to apply the data management
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techniques associated with open data to increase value. In applying modern data

management standards, a multiplicity of benefits result, including increased

coordination in aligning the associated 3D actors, maximizing value for money spent,

leadership opportunities for Canada on the international development scene, better

public engagement at home, and increased democratic accountability. Of note is

Faust's (2010) research that indicates such an increase in accountability translates into

more effective foreign aid. Improving efficiency of aid outlays is of particular interest

to governments facing the reality of austerity budgeting. Although vested interests

may resist the call for such transparency, the budgetary benefits in streamlining aid

outlays are undeniably attractive to administrators looking for cost savings.

While the challenges to implementing a public open data regime are

significant, other government actors have shown that it is possible to address

privacy, confidentiality, and intellectual property issues in making raw data sets

available for public consumption. From an operational point of view, there exists

significant opportunity for open data to work towards answering the question as to

why development aid in Africa has failed to lift the continent out of poverty. With

the many cascading benefits of building up open data expertise in Canada, pursuing

such a regime is an attractive option that ought to be afforded wholesome debate in

any Western country that seeks to improve the effectiveness of its foreign aid

spending.
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References

Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. (2005). Canada's international

policy statement: a role of pride and influence in the world. Ottawa, ON, Canada:

Author.

Faust, Jörg. (2010). Do less transparent donor countries allocate aid differently? (ASPA

2010 Annual Meeting Paper). Bonn, Germany: German Development Institute.

Retrieved on 7 December, 2010, from http://ssrn.com/abstract=1644704

Lehre, Eric. (2007). Is the 3-D construct at work in Kandahar or are we kidding

ourselves? The Dispatch Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute Newsletter

4, no. 3. Retrieved December 17, 2010, from

http://www.cdfai.org/newsletters/newsletterfall2006.htm

Library of Parliament. (2010). Government 2.0 and access to information: recent

developments in proactive disclosure and open data in Canada. Ottawa, ON,

Canada: Author.

Martin, Keith. (2010, January 25). An international 911. The Mark. Retrieved

November 29, 2010, from http://www.themarknews.com/articles/866-an-

international-911

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – Development Assistance

Committee (OECD DAC). (2010). Transition financing: building a better response

(INCAF Booklet). Paris: Author.

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References (continued)

Patrick, Stewart, & Kaysie Brown. (2007). Greater than the sum of its parts? Assessing “whole

of government” approaches to fragile states. New York: International Peace Academy.

Simon, K.D. (2010). The value of open standards and open-source software in

government environments. IBM Systems Journal 44(2), 227-238.

Smith, Gordon. (2007). Canada in Afghanistan: is it working? Calgary, AB: Canadian

Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

Woods, Ngaire. (2005). The shifting politics of foreign aid. International Affairs, 81(2),

393-409.