Evaluation of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership Cost-shared Strategic Initiatives – Summary

About the evaluation

  • The Office of Audit and Evaluation of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) conducted an evaluation of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) Cost-shared Strategic Initiatives to assess relevance, design, delivery, effectiveness and efficiency.
  • The evaluation focused on CAP Cost-shared Strategic Initiatives activities from 2018-2019 to 2022-23; however, case studies assessed longer-term performance by reviewing projects that began under Growing Forward 2. The following methods were used: a document, administrative and performance data review; interviews with AAFC officials, provincial and territorial government officials and Federal-Provincial/Territorial (FPT) committee members; case studies and comparative reviews focused on program design and delivery.

CAP Cost-shared Strategic Initiatives summary

  • Agriculture is a shared jurisdiction and for more than 20 years FPT governments have built strong collaborations in support of the sector to increase its competitiveness, profitability and sustainability. This collaboration occurred through a series of negotiated policy frameworks including the Agricultural Policy Framework (2003-2008), Growing Forward (2008-2013), Growing Forward 2 (2013-2018) and the fourth installment, the Canadian Agriculture Partnership (CAP) (2018-2023).
  • The CAP Cost-shared Strategic Initiatives component of the Framework Agreement funds initiatives in 6 priority areas: Science, Research and Innovation; Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change; Markets and Trade; Risk Management; Value-Added Agriculture and Agri-Food Processing; and Public Trust.
  • Programs are designed and delivered by provincial and territorial governments. Costs to administer the programs are cost-shared between federal and provincial governments on a 60:40% basis. While provinces and territories may determine the suite of programs that best suit their regional needs, all provinces and territories must commit to meet the broad objectives of the 6 priority areas.

What we found

Relevance

  • The Cost-shared Program aligns with government and sector priorities that reflect current and future agriculture sector development and growth needs.
  • However, the lack of appropriate outcome measures precludes the ability to assess the extent to which Cost-shared programming meets those needs.

Design and delivery

  • The Cost-shared model responds to the need for a collective Pan-Canadian vision for the agriculture and agri-food sector, while addressing jurisdictional differences.
  • The Cost-shared Program governance structure lacks the necessary co-ordination and collaboration between and among groups to best achieve shared goals.
  • Strong connections to stakeholders, the use of experts, flexible and adaptable programming, simplified processes and performance tracking are common approaches across provinces and territories leading to best practices in delivery.

Economy

  • Cost-shared programming manages and allocates resources effectively to achieve strategic initiatives. The combined shared funding amounts create an investment in the sector that one entity alone could not provide.
  • There is some duplication of cost-shared programming by federal, provincial or territorial initiatives that developed over the five years of the framework detracting from optimal efficiency.

Performance

  • Performance targets for immediate outputs have been met for most planned activities in all priority areas and some examples of sector and producer outcomes are available.
  • Performance measurement has improved somewhat since the last framework, though a lack of outcome and impact data persists. Little qualitative or quantifiable data is available to demonstrate outcomes thoroughly across all priority areas.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1
The Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Branch, in collaboration with the Assistant Deputy Ministers, Strategic Policy Branch and the Market and Industry Services Branch, undertake a review of the cost-shared governance structure to refine and implement mechanisms that will enhance coherence and coordination among participants.
Recommendation 2
The Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Branch, in collaboration with the Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, work with CAP stakeholders to enhance transparency through increased joint data and information sharing related to programs, performance and best practices among federal, provincial and territorial stakeholders.
Recommendation 3
The Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Branch, work with FPT partners to improve the performance measurement framework outcome indicators to support assessments of program impacts.

Management response

Management agrees with the evaluation recommendations and has developed an action plan to implement most actions by end of March 2023. The first Strategic Planning Meetings will occur by March 2025.

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