Accountability

CIDA's Approach to Accountability of Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives

1.1. The Context and the Evolution of the Agency's Policy on Gender Equality

CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality, introduced in 1999, reaffirmed a long-standing commitment by the Agency in the pursuit of equality between women and men internationally. The policy is results-based and considers equity as a means to achieving good development results, making the link to poverty reduction and bringing greater focus to the realization of the human rights of women and girls. The policy provides direction for its implementation, and has guided the development of tools to support the achievement of equality between women and men.

At the national level, the Government of Canada's five-year Agenda for Gender Equality (2000-2005) has reaffirmed CIDA's policy commitments to equality between women and men, specifically: "Gender equality results will be systematically and explicitly integrated across all CIDA programming, including new aid modalities (sector-wide approaches, direct budget support, and basket funding).'' In 2006 the Minister of International Cooperation announced a renewed commitment to investing in specific initiatives: "… we need programs and funding that specifically target support to the economic and social development of women. We need to combine forces and work in collaboration with developing countries to speed up progress for women and girls."

At the international level, the 2005 report of the UN expert group identified gaps, challenges and opportunities in linking the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and highlighted the absence of time-frame targets and indicators that makes monitoring progress for gender equality and women's empowerment rather difficult for the donor community.

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1.2. Accountability for Achieving Equality Between Women and Men Results

The accountability for achieving operational and development results is articulated in the Agency Accountability Framework and CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality, and supported by the Gender Equality Performance Assessment Framework (PAF), as follows:

• The President, CIDA's Equality Between Women and Men Champion, is accountable to the Minister for actual development results achieved, in conjunction with partners.
• Accountability for the implementation of CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality rests within each of CIDA's corporate and program branches, partners, and executing agencies.
• Evaluation of the implementation of CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality is the responsibility of the Evaluation Division, Performance and Knowledge Management Branch. It is carried out as part of the normal review cycle.

In carrying out its mandate, CIDA delivers its cooperation and development support through various programs and projects around the world. The delivery of both specific and integrated programming initiatives is done through various delivery models: directive (the Agency designs and contracts for implementation), responsive (the Agency contributes, partners design and implement), and core funding/institutional support (the Agency and partners share interests, therefore CIDA funding supplements their resources to achieve more institutional results). Accountability requirements are determined by the business model and type of development initiatives, namely:

a) Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives Funded Through Multilateral Institutions
b) Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives Funded Through Canadian Civil Society and Private Sector Partners
c) Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives Funded by Geographic Branches
d) Policy Dialogue and Advice to Partner Countries as Part of New Aid Modalities

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(a) Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives Funded Through Multilateral Institutions

Over the period 1999-2006, CIDA has funded 31 percent of its equality between women and men initiatives via the programs of multilateral institutions (United Nations agencies and multilateral development banks). Among the institutions that received a significant share of CIDA resources (more than $10 million) for equality between women and men programming are the World Bank, African Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and World Food Programme (WFP). We also fund and support a number of multilateral health institutions and global programs and partnerships that have an explicit and focused mandate to support equality between women and men. These include United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and institutions involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS and in the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis (GFATM), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Health Organization (WHO), WHO/UNICEF International Canadian Immunization Initiative, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the International Partnership for Microbicides. Finally, we support multilateral partners to increase funding or to develop specific funds to support equality between women and men programming, and we will contribute to equality between women and men trust funds at the World Bank (new), Inter-American Development Bank (new), and Asian Development Bank (renewal with Asia Branch). Multilateral Programs Branch (MPB) included an equality between women and men component in the recently approved African Development Bank trust fund.

The funding model is pre-eminently one of core funding. The principal elements of the Agency's accountability include ensuring the selection of appropriate partners that demonstrate intent and competence to work toward achieving equality between women and men goals, and supporting them to manage for results in line with the Agency's policy, guidelines, and priorities.

The oversight procedures encompasses:

• financial risk assessment carried out as part of due diligence on grants or contribution agreements.
• policy dialogue, which involves working with our partners to provide leadership and support related to gender mainstreaming with a view to achieving equality between women and men results. Policy dialogue includes stand-alone events, debate, and negotiation on executive boards, at annual meetings, or reviews and in follow-up discussions.
• the Gender Equality Institutional Assessment (GEIA), which is a key tool that supports MPB's efforts toward greater aid effectiveness and contributes toward the institutional strengthening of CIDA's multilateral partners in the area of equality between women and men. GEIA aims to assess to what extent the organization plans for, achieves and reports on equality between women and men results.
• review of regular monitoring, evaluation, and audit reports provided by these organizations, and corrective actions undertaken as needed.
• CIDA's periodic evaluations or assessment of these organizations' equality between women and men operations, results achieved, and reporting mechanisms, in line with partners' policies.

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(b) Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives Funded Through Canadian Civil Society and Private Sector Partners

Between 1999 and 2006, 18 percent of equality between women and men resources were devoted to supporting partner organizations in Canada's voluntary and private sectors. These organizations work in partnership with local partners to identify, plan, and implement programs and projects in developing countries, to which the Agency contributes on a cost-shared basis. CIDA's Canadian partners also carry out activities to raise public awareness or involve Canadians as volunteers and donors. Among partner organizations that received between $5 and $15 million over the last eight years are CUSO, Oxfam Quebec, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation, and the Aga Khan Foundation.

Under this responsive funding model, the Agency's accountability for equality between women and men is to determine whether the initiative is consistent with CIDA's policies and priorities, and whether the proponent is competent to deliver the development results as intended.

The oversight procedures are largely the same as those of multilateral organizations described above. In addition, Canadian Partnership Branch (CPB) oversight procedures also encompasses the following:

• CIDA-CPB Frameworks for Integrating Gender Equality (2003) to support its partners' institutional capacity for mainstreaming gender equality and also for their gender equality programming.
• reviews, using the above-mentioned tool, of all the proposals submitted for funding by its partners to ensure the equality between women and men component is adequately addressed.

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(c) Equality Between Women and Men Initiatives Funded by Geographic Branches

Through its geographic branches, CIDA devoted almost 52 percent of equality between women and men resources between 1999 and 2006 to fund many programs and projects in a number of countries. Countries that received the largest proportion, more than $10 million, include Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Tanzania, Senegal, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, Haiti, and Rwanda. Under this directive funding model, the Agency's accountability relates to the strategic selection of possible investments, the quality of their design in line with the CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality, and the management of the performance of executing agencies toward development results. In sum, the accountability regime requires CIDA to ensure progress toward development results to assure appropriate risk management and financial reporting, and make necessary adjustments on a timely basis.

The oversight procedures at the project and program levels encompass the following elements from design to final implementation stage:

• At the design stage, geographic branches ensure that feasibility studies and strategic analyses, as well as partner management capacities to deliver equality between women and men initiatives, are adequate. In this process, a clear project/program-level accountability and results framework, including equality between women and men strategies and a results-based Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) for specific equality between women and men initiatives, is designed and discussed with developing-country partners, and competent Canadian executing agencies are selected.
• Implementation procedures include quarterly financial and progress reporting by the executing agency, ongoing performance and risk-management reports, and annual project or performance reports on progress made against expected results, and adjustments, if needed.
• Branches are also responsible for conducting project- or program-level evaluations of equality between women and men specific initiatives, and for ensuring that the gender component of integrated program or projects are covered by evaluation initiatives.
• Financial audits are also conducted by CIDA's internal Financial Compliance Unit.

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(d) Policy Dialogue and Advice to Partner Countries as Part of New Aid Modalities

New aid modalities (sector-wide approaches, direct budget support, and basket funding) provide important opportunities to donors to work together with each other and with governments in broadening and strengthening their accountability to promote equality between women and men at the macro level. Agency accountability under this model requires policy dialogue and gender-based analyses to support countries in the development of their key policy frameworks (e.g. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSPs) or other national strategies and frameworks). International multidonor equality between women and men initiatives are overseen through coordinated mechanisms, including equality between women and men consultative, advisory, or coordination groups.

Conclusion:

In addition to the above accountability requirements and in line with the Treasury Board requirement to undertake periodic evaluations of significant government policies and programs, the Evaluation Division within Performance and Knowledge Management Branch is currently conducting a corporate evaluation of the implementation of the 1999 CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality. This is expected to be completed this year. Also, audits may be commissioned by CIDA's Internal Audit Division either as part of the Agency's internal audit plan or as requested by the branch. On an annual basis, the Agency ensures that equality between women and men is reported on through the Departmental Performance Reports (DPR) using the Investment Monitoring and Reporting Tool (IMRT).