| 1. Adapt and implement joint development, trade, and diplomacy planning tools and processes at both the country and regional level in ways that are flexible and specific to middle-income country needs and operating contexts. | NMD agrees with this recommendation | - NMD will continue to enhance and train on the benefits of Mission-wide coherent, strategic planning through: Pre-posting training for HOMs, Program Managers and Officers; Strategia planning training and HQ review training which will include those destined for middle-income countries. Pre-posting training will be measured through CFSI administered surveys and feedback will be actioned.
- To help measure the success of the NMD led pre-posting and Strategia training, NMD staff will conduct an analysis of a sample of middle-income country Strategia plans from 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2023 to identify improvements, gaps and areas for further enhancements. This analysis will be leveraged to help improve training, Strategia (the tool) and the mission planning process overall, with a focus on middle-income countries.
- NMD will develop an alignment report leveraging Strategia data which will help identify gaps in coherent (cross-stream) country planning. HOMs and HQ management will be able to review the HOM and Mission commitments and identify where Mission programs are working coherently to advance common objectives at Mission or where gaps may exist. This report will be published and shared using Spectrum (PowerBI).
- NMD in collaboration with DPD, BTD, PRD, geographic branches and targeted subject matter experts (i.e. IFM, KFM, MFM) will coordinate and implement a series of four coherent planning pilots in middle-income countries, one per region of the world, to help test and improve the cross-stream mission planning process and learn how to improve the tools (i.e. Strategia) to ensure that the planning, monitoring and reporting tools support the process.
A final report will be delivered with recommended actions for future training and tool enhancements once all pilots are complete. | NMD 4. In collaboration with BTD, DPD, PRD, geographic branches and subject matter experts (i.e. IFM, KFM, MFM). | - Training to be delivered by March 2023
- Comparative analysis to be conducted by June 30, 2023
- Report to be developed by October 2022
- All pilots to be completed by March 2024
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| 2. Clarify how the department’s policy guidance and strategies across development and trade streams are meant to complement each other and how they should be applied to advance harmonized objectives in middle-income countries. | PVP/PVD agree with this recommendation. PEP/PED agree with this recommendation. | - PEP will work with PVP on developing a work plan to raise awareness of policies and strategies, including parameters on how they should be applied in middle-income countries across Development and Trade streams.
- PEP and PVP will work to highlight crosswalks between various departmental Guidance Notes relevant to the Trade and Development nexus, and provide clarity as to how they can be applied in middle-income countries. A Modus/Wiki page will be developed to house this information, and serve as a repository for relevant tools and guidance to support programming in middle-income countries.
- PVP will work with PEP to raise awareness of tools and guidance available to programs in middle-income countries through a broadcast message, which will also link to the newly created Modus/Wiki page.
- PVP and PEP will set up a department-wide reference group, including participants at HQ and at missions, to provide an opportunity to share best practices and successes, and discuss challenges for programming in middle-income countries. In consultation with SGP, the group will support efforts to explore alignment between international commitments, departmental and program objectives, policy instruments and implementation mechanisms in middle-income countries to foster greater coherence in implementation efforts.
- PVP and PEP will co-host a short series of learning events, which will provide overviews of available policy guidance, provide an opportunity to share best practices, and raise awareness of tools and guidance available for working in middle-income countries.
| PVD, PED | - October 2022
- October 2022 (6 months)
- November 2022 (7 months)
- Fall 2022/Winter 2023
- June 2023 (14 months)
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| 3. Support the incremental use of innovative finance mechanisms in middle-income countries that allows for the time, resources and development of capacity needed for country programs to integrate them into their work. | MLD and SGD partially agree with this recommendation. As the evaluation scope did not include GAC’s current primary mechanisms for innovative finance (IAIP, SLP and climate finance), further consideration is required to inform how GoC/GAC could use innovative finance, including to better support MIC transition. | - MFM and SCM will jointly lead a process to return to Cabinet with options on the Government of Canada’s future approach to innovative finance and sovereign lending for development, in line with policy authority requiring a cabinet review before the end of the five-year pilot International Assistance Innovation Program and Sovereign Loans Program.
- MLD will also support increased GAC capacity and understanding of innovative finance approaches (including climate finance) by (1) organizing learning events related to operational programming; and (2) engaging GAC missions in MIC contexts in monitoring of innovative finance programming.
- Working with development programs, SGD is in the first year of implementing a DME-approved five-year Pilot that is intended to support, over time, the effective and efficient deployment of innovative development programming requiring conditionally repayable contributions. The Pilot is intended to build incremental capacity over time and, while it does not have a geographic focus, it could eventually support programming across all development programming, including in MICs.
| SGD, MLD | - March 31, 2023
- March 31, 2023
- Pilot to 2026-27
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