Evaluation of the International Legal Programs Section
5. Conclusions, Recommendations and Management Response
This section of the report provides conclusions based on the findings presented in Section 4. The information is structured along the main evaluation issues, and recommendations are included as applicable.
5.1. Relevance
Responding to Federal Priorities
The activities of ILPS support the Government of Canada’s international priorities relating to justice sector reform through the “whole-of-government” approach for the advancement of Canada’s foreign policy and development assistance agenda. The federal government supports international justice sector development promoting Canadian values, the rule of law to protect the security and safety of Canadians at home and abroad, and in supporting economic development.
Continued Need for ILPS
Canada’s extensive experience in the rule of law is often recognized and respected by many foreign countries for its assistance to countries, ministries and institutions to improve their legal systems and enhance security and rule of law for that country’s citizens. Canada is well positioned to provide legal technical assistance abroad because it has an advanced justice system along with the benefits of having both common law and civil law traditions.
ILPS has been providing government-to-government technical assistance because it has the legal expertise and competencies, the credibility, and the experience to develop and manage legal technical assistance projects to foreign countries seeking to modernize their justice system.
Additionally, beneficiaries from recipient countries receiving assistance indicated that there is a need for ILPS to provide legal technical assistance since the recipient country often does not have the resources nor the expertise to upgrade their legal system.
Demand
ILPS has designed and implemented seven new legal technical assistance projects during the evaluation period, of which two of these projects have been extended and the remaining five projects have been completed. The total time spent by ILPS executing technical assistance projects between 2009-10 and 2013-14, ranged from approximately 12,000 hours to 33,000 hours, or 67% of the total time spent undertaking ILPS functions.
ILPS has also been involved in providing legal policy development and strategic advice to other government departments, especially to GAC, on matters pertaining to international justice sector reform and assistance, and the integration of the access to justice and the rule of law. The time spent by ILPS researching and providing strategic advice ranged from nearly 1,900 hours to almost 4,600 hours between 2009-10 and 2013-14. This time spent on strategic advisory work accounts for approximately 11% of the total time spent undertaking ILPS functions.
Alignment with Federal Roles and Responsibilities
The Department’s provision of legal technical assistance is consistent with the Government of Canada’s “whole-of-government” approach of promoting Canada’s democratic values in targeted countries and regions around the world, and strengthening the rule of law as a means of supporting social and economic development and security. Under the whole-of-government approach, ILPS serves a general advisory and policy-development role in the Department and within the federal government as a centre of both theoretical and practical expertise on international legal technical assistance.
5.2. Design of the Section
Mandate of ILPS
The evaluation found that the mandate of the Section is not well articulated or well known. Key informants therefore, suggested that the Section develop a clearly defined vision and mission statement and to communicate them across the Department and to other relevant federal departments and agencies.
Composition of ILPS
The Section consists of a core group of permanent employees and a flexible group of non-permanent or temporary employees on secondment to the Section from across the Department and/or other federal departments. This flexible structure of staffing process provides the Section with specific expertise to address particular needs of funded projects and the capacity to respond to emerging demands and priorities.
Roles and Responsibilities
The evaluation found that there are various types of international legal technical assistance work undertaken within the Department and that there is not a central point of coordination for requests of this type of assistance. Other sections within the Department provide - generally out of their existing resources - international legal technical assistance on an ad hoc basis and focus on Canadian law. Whereas, ILPS provides - on a cost-recovery basis - legal technical assistance to foreign countries wanting to reform their justice sector, and consequently projects are more targeted, comprehensive, and tied to specific priorities and outcomes.
This fragmentation of international legal technical assistance activities has the potential to result in duplication of work and inconsistencies. Though the evaluation did not find any evidence of this, some key informants thought that there is a lack of understanding of the role of ILPS within the Department and the nature of their substantive legal work. According to these key informants, one possible solution could be for the Section to promote its roles and responsibilities to relevant areas of the Department.
Performance Monitoring and Reporting Capacity
The Section has a systematic process in place within ILPS for collecting, monitoring and reporting on performance results of legal technical assistance projects by using GAC’s reporting system. However, for strategic advisory and outreach activities, there is no systematic and standardized process for monitoring performance and reporting on its outcomes other than recording the time spent working on these activities in iCase.
5.3. Performance
5.3.1. Achievement of Expected Outcomes
Project Design and Implementation Function of Legal Technical Assistance Projects
During the evaluation period, ILPS developed and implemented seven new legal technical assistance projects in five recipient countries namely Palestinian Authority, Ukraine, Turks and Caicos Islands, Mexico and Jamaica. Of these, five projects have been completed and the remaining two projects have been extended. The types of technical assistance projects implemented varied in nature and duration. These types of projects address institutional capacity, and legal and judicial system foundations by strengthening justice ministries; advising and offering policy support on anti-corruption measures; developing legal resource centres; and strengthening legislative drafting functions. Across all of the technical assistance projects delivered, there was a high level of knowledge transfer.
However, there was limited information available with respect to the achievement of the intermediate outcome of enhancing the capacity of a recipient country to deliver fair and accessible justice. The evaluation found that this was dependent on the length of time a technical assistance project was in operation, the comprehensiveness of a project, and the availability of data, including post-measurement data, collected during and after operation of a project to assess its progress.
The evaluation also found that identifying and understanding the needs of the beneficiaries are important for tailoring a legal technical assistance initiative to their context. This understanding of the needs of the beneficiaries stems from the length of time the project is in operation and interacting with the beneficiaries on a regular basis. Timing and sequencing of project activities are also key factors to successfully execute a project.
The evaluation further noted that projects that only focus on transferring knowledge of Canadian justice system principles, processes, structures and experiences, and in operation for a period of three years or less and not as comprehensive, are less likely to have an impact on the delivery of fair and accessible justice. In addition, the availability of data, such as feedback or survey data during the operation of a project or any post-measurement data, are essential for a project to demonstrate progress and impacts.
The evaluation identified promising practices that aided in the achievement of expected outcomes by using the two case studies, the Palestinian Authority Project and the Mexico Project, which had three sub-projects.
Promising practices included:
- Having a Field Director and Deputy Director co-located with the beneficiaries of the technical assistance project was useful and critical to the success, legitimacy and credibility of the project.
- Planning the project in a holistic fashion was beneficial to the overall project, ensuring the appropriate sequencing of activities.
- Hiring local specialists to work alongside the local employees was beneficial in order to reinforce knowledge transfer between specialist and employee.
- A committee of international donors was established to be aware of the recipients’ evolving needs and to minimize and prevent any overlap or duplication of technical assistance provided, and at the same time improve the efficiency of their respective projects.
- Study tours to Canada provided an opportunity for judges to consolidate both theoretical and skills-based learning about the adversarial judicial system and to observe firsthand the skills required for a judge under this type of judicial system. When the judges visited the Canadian courts, the principles and processes that were discussed became “real” and more understandable. Although the learning exchanges to Canada can be costly it is very valuable since it is difficult to replicate the learning in non-Canadian environments.
- Partnerships with local and regional organizations in the recipient country also contributed to the transfer of knowledge.
There were a few challenges during the implementation phase:
- The contracting of local staff, which caused significant delays and affected implementation schedules of the project.
- The capacity of the recipient institution to participate in the training activities. The recipients were busy with their daily work and there was a limited capacity in terms of numbers, time and skills to participate in the many training and technical missions provided. While this issue may have been a result of the compressed timeframe, there was insufficient information available to make a clear determination.
Strategic advice and outreach
ILPS is the Section within the Department that is sought by GAC to provide strategic advice on policy matters relating to justice sector reform in a foreign country. The Section also participates in interdepartmental committees and working groups to discuss Canada’s intervention in conflict or priority country areas. In order to inform its strategic advisory responsibilities, ILPS engages in trilateral forums with the UK and the US to share experiences, stay current on emerging issues and to avoid any duplication of work. As part of its outreach function at the CBA annual conferences, ILPS organizes and coordinates annual workshops on international justice sector development. Besides its purpose of information exchange, ILPS creates and maintains a network of contacts in the international development community and advances Canada’s foreign policy priorities and international development justice sector.
5.3.2. Demonstration of Efficiency and Economy
The human resources organizational structure of ILPS consists of a core group of permanent employees and a flexible group of temporary employees on secondment to ILPS. Based on the funding and needs of the legal technical assistance projects, ILPS draws on other experts from across the Department and/or departments, or contract experts outside the federal government. The experts come to ILPS on secondment for a specified period of time to work solely on a technical assistance project. This organizational structure of core and flexible groups is considered efficient due to the flexibility of the human resources structure responding to the needs of technical assistance projects and the provision of strategic advisory work.
Despite the organizational structure of ILPS being efficient, there were some concerns with respect to internal knowledge transfer. At the end of a project or at the end of a specified period with a project, the temporary employee(s) return to their respective department(s), which can lead to a loss of expertise and knowledge gained during a project. Some key informants thought that the Section does not have a strong knowledge management component, and therefore, minimal internal knowledge transfer occurs.
In terms of the level of effort, counsel (LA-00, LA-01 and LA-2A) tend to work more on the legal technical assistance projects and the senior counsel (LA-2B and LA-3A) focused more on the strategic advisory work.
Despite the usefulness of the iCase data, there were challenges in analyzing this data in terms of the inconsistencies on how information was entered into iCase. This made it difficult to differentiate between legal technical assistance project work and strategic advisory work.
ILPS underwent a program review in fiscal year 2011-12. The decision was then made that the Section will operate on a full cost-recovery funding model on the basis of funds generated from providing legal technical assistance activities through projects to recipient countries, and therefore funded by GAC. The cost-recovery approach was implemented progressively from fiscal year 2012-13. Key informants identified challenges with this type of funding model resulting from gaps between projects, staff retention, and the ability to respond quickly and effectively to requests, and securing the necessary expertise for the Section.
In spite of the efficiencies of the Section’s organizational structure, the evaluation found that there are factors influencing the Section’s ability to operate efficiently that include the following:
- Implications of cost recovery thereby influencing staff retention, securing corporate memory and capacity building within the Section. In addition, the cost recovery only covers for legal technical assistance project activities and not for strategic advisory work or conducting needs assessments of potential projects.
- Shortage of administrative support, which in turn affects the efficiency of the counsel’s work in that they often have to complete administrative work such as travel arrangements, contracting of experts, and administrative aspects of project reporting, that divert their attention from substantive project-related work.
- Travel constraints due to the centralization of administrative processes and reduced flexibility.
- Challenges procuring international contracts for renting office space, buying equipment, or hiring local staff in the recipient country has led to long delays in project implementation.
- Limited knowledge sharing between ILPS project staff has influenced the planning and development of new project activities.
5.4. Recommendations and Management Response
Below presents the recommendations and management response.
Issue 1: Communication
Mandate of ILPS
The evaluation found that while ILPS has the mandate to carry out legal technical assistance, it is not well articulated or well known. Key informants suggested that the Section develop a clearly defined vision and mission statement and to communicate them across the Department and to other relevant federal departments and agencies.
Roles and Responsibilities
The evaluation found that there are various types of international legal technical assistance work undertaken within the Department, and that there is no central point of coordination for requests of this type of assistance. Other sections within the Department provide – generally out of their existing resources - international legal technical assistance on an ad hoc basis and focus on Canadian law. Whereas, ILPS provides – on a cost-recovery basis - legal technical assistance to foreign countries wanting to reform their justice sector, and consequently projects are more targeted, comprehensive, and tied to specific priorities and outcomes.
This fragmentation of international legal technical assistance activities has the potential to result in duplication of work and inconsistencies. Though the evaluation did not find any evidence of this, some key informants thought that there is a lack of understanding of the role of ILPS within the Department and the nature of their substantive legal work. According to these key informants, one possible solution could be for the Section to promote its roles and responsibilities to relevant areas of the Department.
Recommendation 1:
In line with the findings, it is recommended that the ILPS clearly define its vision and mission statement and communicate them as well as its roles and responsibilities to relevant sections within the Department including the Legal Services Units, the Criminal Law Policy Section, the Contracting and Materiel Management Division, the International Assistance Group, and to other federal departments and agencies, such as pertinent sections within Global Affairs Canada.
Management Response:
We agree with the recommendation. We consider that, in addition to developing a vision and mission statement, it would be useful to take a number of measures to clarify ILPS’ role.
Issue 2: Knowledge Management
Despite the organizational structure of ILPS being efficient, there were some concerns with respect to internal knowledge transfer. At the end of a project or at the end of a specified period with a project, the temporary employee(s) return to their respective department(s), which can lead to a loss of expertise and knowledge gained during a project. Some key informants thought that the Section does not have a strong knowledge management component, and therefore, minimal internal knowledge transfer occurs.
In addition, it was identified that limitedknowledge sharing between ILPS project staff was identified as a factor influencing the ability of ILPS to provide its activities in terms of efficiently planning and developing new legal technical assistance projects.
Recommendation 2:
It is recommended that the ILPS improve its internal knowledge management and transfer capabilities to retain corporate memory and to strengthen its capacity to plan and develop technical assistance projects.
Management Response:
We agree with the recommendation.
ILPS has accumulated over the years a good quantity of information. However, this information has remained largely unprocessed, thus generating limited usable knowledge. Correcting the situation is therefore not simply a matter of transferring knowledge but also of generating it.
This requires dealing with two separate but closely linked categories of information:
- tangible information on substantive matters which is recorded in written documents; and
- intangible information on law and development flowing from the section's experience in project design and implementation.
Issue 3: iCase Data
Despite the usefulness of the iCase data, there were challenges in analyzing this data in terms of the inconsistencies on how information was entered into iCase. This made it difficult to differentiate between legal technical assistance project work and strategic advisory work.
Recommendation 3:
It is recommended that ILPS apply a standardized approach to recording data in iCase in order to improve the overall data integrity, therefore making it possible to assist with workflow tracking, to measure and compare the demands for its services, and to analyze trends over time.
Management Response:
We agree with the recommendation. Moving forward, files will be created so that the time spent on technical assistance can be distinguished from the time spent on strategic advice.
Issue 4: International Contracting
ILPS has experienced challenges procuring international contracts for renting office space, buying equipment or hiring local staff in the recipient country, which has led to long delays in project implementation.
Recommendation 4:
It is recommended that ILPS initiate discussions with the Contracting and Materiel Management Division to explore options for international contracting.
Management Response:
We agree with the recommendation and will undertake the following steps:
- Develop document describing the nature of the contracting issue;
- Hold meeting with JUS’ contracting operations section; and
- Develop internal note summarizing the outcome of the discussions and identifying follow-up measures required, if any.
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