By Canadian Press

Disorganized foreign-aid reporting means Ottawa can’t track feminist outcomes: audit

Mar 27, 2023 | 8:04 AM

OTTAWA — Global Affairs Canada has no sense of whether development aid meant to help women and girls abroad is actually advancing gender equity, according to an audit tabled in Parliament today.

The auditor general says Ottawa does not track whether an annual $3.5 billion in bilateral aid is actually meeting the goals of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, and adds that aid for Africa has been diverted to Ukraine.

The audit released today says the department struggled to provide information on projects because of a lack of standardized record keeping, forms not getting filled out and data being stored on the personal computers of staff who had left the department.

It also notes that the department tracks indicators — but not actual progress — on half of the projects covered by the audit, such as assessing how many people received food but not whether their health had improved.

However, the audit did find that Global Affairs Canada is generally successful at designing programs through an equity lens using the criteria set out under its gender-based analysis, with more than 80 per cent of spending going to projects that integrate gender.

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The department says it accepts the findings of the audit and is planning to shore up its data collection.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2023.

The Canadian Press