Management Response

Agreed. Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada strives to allocate its humanitarian funding in line with the Principles and Good Practice of Humanitarian Donorship. The Department will work to better document the rationale behind the dollar amounts proposed for humanitarian funding recommendations.

Management Action Plan

Completion Dates

·         DFATD will systematically document (and put on file) the rationale for how proposed funding envelopes are determined as well as the rationale for why partners’ proposals were selected.

September 2015

Management Response

Agreed. Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada agrees that timely funding of humanitarian operations is critical to saving lives and alleviating human suffering, and will continue to identify opportunities for improving its response time.

Management Action Plan

Completion Dates

·         DFATD will establish a monitoring mechanism to measure and assess the timeliness of its responses to the onset of humanitarian crises, including both slow and rapid onset.

May 31, 2015

Management Response

Agreed. All of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada’s humanitarian partners provide reporting on an annual basis, which includes results achieved and lessons learned. Assessing those results is an integral part of the program management cycle. The Department will review its current approach to assessing results. Based on that review, it will adopt measures to ensure that it better captures and assesses results to inform future programming recommendations.

Management Action Plan

Completion Dates

·         DFATD will eliminate the existing backlog of incomplete project Management Summary Reports (MSR) and thereafter, within a year of receiving final project reports, complete the MSRs.

·         As part of its November/December review of annual humanitarian appeals, DFATD will develop a funding recommendation template that integrates an analysis of lessons learned as well as any available relevant results.

December 2016

December 2015

Management Response

Agreed. The Department notes that both projects reviewed by the Auditor General, which have led to this recommendation, are now fully operational. Potential project implementation delays represent key considerations when planning and making decisions related to investments in development assistance. The Department will provide greater weight to the aspect of timeliness in assessing and establishing risk ranking for projects.

Management Action Plan

Completion Dates

Although the specific recommendation referred to in the AG report referenced Syria specifically and the management response was developed in this light, some components of this Action Plan are applicable across DFATD programming.

1.      Update to DFATD's Guide “Creating Risk Management Profiles for Development Programs and Initiatives" to include timeliness as a component for consideration in developing initiative. 

2.      Branch Risk Management Plans (as part of the Branch Business Plans) will be updated during the next iteration for 2015-16 and include timeliness as a factor to be considered as part of the risk management plan, with respect to development assistance.

3.      Country programs will be advised to consider risks and results associated with timeliness for project implementation as a component within the Annual Country Development Reports (ACDRs) 2014-2015.

4.      Country programs will be advised to consider risks and results associated with timeliness for project implementation as a component within the ACDRs where programming is advanced to respond to the Syrian crisis (eg: Jordan and Egypt in this context).

5.      The development project approval memo template instructions will be amended to include specific reference to risks and mitigation associated with timeliness, when project approval and implementation is time-sensitive.      

Completed

Completed

Summer  2015

Summer  2015

May 29, 2015