The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs marked its 60^th anniversary with a speaker worthy of the occasion: Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand. At a time when Canada is leading international headlines, the opportunity to hear from the country’s leading diplomat was an honour for the standing-room-only audience, which included ambassadors, diplomats, alumni, faculty, and students. 

“To be able to be with you this evening, to celebrate 60 years of this institution, is an honour, and I thank you for inviting me,” said Anand, before acknowledging the ambassadors in the audience, as well as MP Yasir Naqvi, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and Secretary of State for International Development, and a NPSIA alumnus. 

Following introductions, Anand stepped away from the podium and spoke extemporaneously on the challenges faced by Canada on the world stage. Her number one objective? To double non-U.S. trade over the next decade. 

That engagement requires near-constant travel, with Anand listing off countries she’s visited in the past year, including India, China, the Nordic Five, the Philippines, Japan, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Turkey, Panama, and Brazil. She also visited Pakistan, where she was the first foreign minister they’d seen since 2007. However, she acknowledged a particular emphasis on the European Union. 

Anand acknowledged that focus on multilateralism comes at a precarious time, with global conflicts increasing as traditional relationships strain. Despite that, she says, the Canadian government has chosen to lead.  

Minister Anand’s remarks were followed by a Q&A moderated by Director Yiagadeesen (Teddy) Samy, featuring questions submitted by NPSIA students. The event concluded with a lively reception attended by NPSIA students, faculty, staff and alumni. 

What are you focused on these days?

My research focuses on two related questions about how evidence on “what works” gets made and used by policymakers. The first is “what works to improve health and education outcomes in low-income countries, and how do we know this?” The second is “how does evidence get used once it exists in Canada?”

On the first question, I’ve spent several years working with data from the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC), which is the largest-ever donor-funded initiative in girls’ education around the world. All of these projects underwent large-scale evaluations to promote learning across the portfolio, and most of my work has focused on evaluating single programs within this portfolio. But more recently, I’ve been wrapping up a SSHRC-funded project that looks at all thirty-seven GEC projects at once to see how the design of the evaluations of each project affected the decisions about how projects were improved over their lifecycle.

On the second question, I recently published a new paper that examines every evaluation report published in the last ten years by the ten largest federal departments in Canada. I looked at how evaluators define “effectiveness” and found that departments have been drifting towards a focus on how programs are being implemented rather than also focusing on the outcomes these programs achieve, even though Canada’s federal Policy on Results requires programs to focus on outcomes.

Why is this work important right now?

Governments and donor agencies are facing hard choices about what to fund, and knowing what works is essential to make good decisions here. At the same time, making sure evaluations that provide this kind of evidence are done in a way that is informative to policymakers and are ready when they’re needed is really difficult, especially when evaluation systems within organizations are complex. So I’m excited that all the areas of my work have been leading me to think more deeply about not just which programs work, but also the evidence-generating systems that allow us to figure that out. This is particularly relevant in Canada right now, with the national Policy on Results under review. This means the rules governing how every federal department evaluates its programs are being reviewed for the first time since 2016, giving us a rare window where empirical work on evaluation practice can truly shape evaluation policy rather than just describe it.

What is a question you hope to answer with your research?

In the broadest sense, I want to know “Does the kind of evidence an evaluation produces change what an organization actually does afterward?” If evaluations take too long, don’t answer the right questions, don’t create evidence that people trust, or are sycophantic, then evaluations become a performative check-box exercise that uses up valuable time and resources. We have a large literature on evaluation quality and a separate literature on evaluation use, and they rarely meet. I want to bridge that gap.

What is something people would be surprised to learn?

Lots of people have no idea that the federal government publishes reports on nearly every federally funded program in Canada. There are thousands of pages of findings about what works (and doesn’t work) in Canadian public programs that almost no one reads. A lot of my work lately has been focused on using new natural language processing methods to analyze these altogether to figure out what’s working within federal programs (and the evaluations themselves!) in Canada.

Another thing that continues to surprise me is how rarely federal evaluations in Canada try to establish causality in federal programs. While this is definitely not the right approach for every project, there have been huge advancements in methods that can be used to figure out whether programs cause a change in the outcomes they’re targeting. These are widely used by economists and other scholars evaluating programs for academic work, but are barely ever used within federal evaluations even when they could be tremendously informative, and I think this is often a missed opportunity.

What’s the biggest misconception about your research area?

Despite my last answer, a common misconception is that methodological complexity is always better. It’s vital to be accurate and rigorous in evaluations, but doing something more complicated like a randomized controlled trial isn’t always better if it answers a question that no one is asking, or will only be ready after answers are needed. Complexity comes with tradeoffs because more complicated evaluations cost more time and resources, so finding the right kind of evaluation design needs to consider the balance of these tradeoffs.

Any new projects you’re excited about?

Yes! I’m currently working on an exciting extension of the paper I published earlier this year on the Policy on Results, looking at what happens after the reports are written. I’m doing this by tying each evaluation report to the management response and action plan, where departments declare what they’re committing to doing in response to an evaluation’s findings. These are the closest thing we have to a record of evaluation use, so I’ve built a new dataset that tracks the relationship between the evaluation findings and the action plans. This will let me figure out what types of evaluation findings are most useful for decision makers, and what kinds of evaluation design choices helped make the findings useful.

What’s your favourite class to teach?

We have the best students at the School of Public Policy and Administration, so this is a really hard choice! I love teaching Evaluation Design for our Diploma in Program and Policy Evaluation students. This is where students get to apply all the theory they learn about evaluation design and bring it to a real-world project that they evaluate over the course of their 16 months in the program. Helping students navigate the very real challenges of doing an evaluation in practice and watching these turn into useful evaluations is such a joy. But I also really love teaching our Microeconomics for Public Policy Analysis in the School’s Master’s of Public Policy and Administration program. A lot of students come to the course feeling either worried about the math involved or very disinterested in all things related to economics. It’s an exciting challenge to get students engaged to see why using economic analysis can be so useful. Usually, by the end of the course, I can directly see the impact my class has had on how students see the world, which is incredibly rewarding.

She’s only just arrived, but Jamie Levine Daniel can sense the atmosphere of momentum and excitement greeting her as the new Chair in Philanthropy in ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA).

When Yiagadeesen (Teddy) Samy began teaching at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) in 2003, it was the only program of its kind in Canada, launching graduates into impactful careers in government, policy, diplomacy, the non-profit sector and related fields.

Over the intervening 23 years, despite growing competition from universities across the country and an increasingly chaotic geopolitical landscape, NPSIA has remained at the top of its class.

“This class met for the first time on the first day of the Fall 2022 semester. For nearly all of the students, it was their very first time in a university classroom, and because of the COVID pandemic, many had not been in person for quite some time. I remember walking into the classroom on that first day. It was absolutely silent. Many of the students looked anxious or scared. I reassured them it was going to be okay!” 

Political Science Professor Erin Tolley remembers that first-year class in the Fall of 2022 and her realization that the students needed to adjust to normal life again. 

“I also realized that because of its small size—this is the advantage of a first-year seminar—this class was an opportunity to help them see that university is a place where you get to find your footing, explore new things, and learn and grow. We worked on that throughout the semester, and many of the students blossomed. At the end of the semester, I shared with them that in my own life, I haven’t always stood back to see how far I’ve come. I encouraged them to reflect on the past four months and to use those insights to advise and encourage their future selves. That’s what the letters were for.” 

Tolley asked the students to write their future selves a letter, which she would return to them at the end of their fourth year—unopened. 

“No, I didn’t read the letters. I promised students I would not! I wanted them to feel free to be honest and unencumbered, to write knowing they were the only audience for the letter.” 

Tolley mailed them to the students in the spring of 2026, four years later. Meghan Moore was one of the students who received one. 

“I didn’t even remember that I had written the letter. I talked about my hopes for the future since I had only just started university and I had no idea what my future would be like. I wrote things like “hopefully you challenge yourself more” or “I hope university is going/went really well and you finally know what you’re doing in life.” I was in the process of moving out for the very first time to live with roommates I had never met before, which I briefly mentioned in the letter and wished myself good luck with the move. Looking back on it now, that was one of the best decisions I ever made and really transformed my life throughout university. 

Overall, it was very nice to feel like I connected with my past self. I got to live out things that she had been wondering about, and they all turned out better than I had ever imagined.” 

Student Brooke Muzzatti had also forgotten about the letter. 

“I was quite surprised when I received an email from Professor Tolley asking where to send it. I am so glad that Professor Tolley followed through and sent us our letters four years later. I wrote about my desire to become a Residence Fellow (RF) and complete an exchange semester in Ireland. I did both. Being in that role and having that international experience shaped the path I now take as I complete my undergrad. Nevertheless, while I have grown in many ways, I have also been quite consistent throughout my university career. For example, I asked myself if I were still working at the House of Commons for my hometown MP – a unique opportunity I was able to have because of ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s location in the nation’s capital. Little did first-year Brooke know that I would be opening my letter at the House of Commons in the same office, but in a new role!”  

Muzzatti also found the first-year seminar experience to be beneficial.  

International student Ana Clara Miranda Guimaraes also benefitted from the seminar. 

As for the letters, Tolley says she would consider doing it again.  

“We don’t spend enough time looking back and contemplating how far we’ve come: I think it’s worthwhile to do so.” 

The School of Public Policy and Administration welcomed incoming graduate students for the 2026/27 academic year with a day of events on Friday, September 11^th in Richcraft Hall.

Graeme Auld, Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA), has received the Yvan Allaire Medal in recognition of an outstanding contribution in governance of public and private organizations from the Royal Society of Canada.

The prestigious award recognizes “the relevance and originality of the candidate’s research and publications on the subject of governance in private organizations; the impact of his or her research and contributions; and the influence and reach of his or her research.”

Auld’s research focuses on “comparative environmental politics and policy, global environmental governance, and the rise of private governance and authority.

Much of his work examines the formation, evolution, and impacts of non-state and hybrid forms of global governance across economic sectors. He also researches the design and efficacy of policy aimed at tackling global problems such as climate change.”

“Graeme Auld’s ground-breaking work in the field of environmental policy and governance has influenced both his academic colleagues and his collaborators outside of academia,” said Mary Francoli, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Public and Global Affairs, which includes the School. “It reflects the calibre of social science research conducted in the School, the Faculty, and ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University as a whole.”

The award was presented at the Fairmount Chateau Laurier in Ottawa on September 15, 2026.

I am one lucky guy.

I was born and raised in Mexico, and three years ago I moved to Ottawa to finish high school. I now attend ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, where I study political science and international relations. Through my part-time work at the Embassy of Mexico in Ottawa, I had the opportunity this month to participate in an important debate at Queens Quay in Toronto about the future of football—or, as most people call it here in Canada, soccer.

On July 8, the two parts of my identity met a third culture when I joined the Qatar-led Doha Debates Town Hall, Football Fandom: Community or Commodity?

As part of the Qatar, Canada and Mexico 2026 Year of Culture, I participated alongside 19 other students and recent graduates with international connections. We came from different places, but football gave us a common language immediately.

The three-country connection made the program especially meaningful to me. Canada and Mexico were co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup, while Qatar had hosted the tournament in 2022. I was a Mexican-born student living in Canada and participating in an event organized by Qatar. It felt like three different parts of the world had come together in one room.

The political alignment showed me what cultural diplomacy can look like on a human scale. It is not only about leaders signing agreements. It can also be young people sitting together and learning how others understand loyalty, identity, community and belonging.

The political context mattered. In January, Prime Minister Mark Carney became the first sitting Canadian prime minister to visit Qatar. Canada and Qatar announced deeper cooperation in trade, investment, technology and security, including sharing lessons from Qatar’s experience hosting the World Cup. Mr. Carney also emphasized the Year of Culture as a way to strengthen people-to-people ties. By July, our Town Hall was giving that diplomatic language a practical form.

Before the debate, activities helped us get to know one another. We played football on a floating pitch, attended workshops, compared models of club ownership and discussed how money is changing the relationship between teams and their supporters. By the time we appeared before an audience, we were comfortable enough to disagree without making it personal.

Doha Debates uses the Arabic majlis tradition, which encourages people to listen and search for common ground. This felt different from university debates, where the goal can seem like proving the other person wrong. In the majlis format, changing your mind is not losing. It may mean that you listened closely enough to understand another perspective.

During the Town Hall, we considered both sides of football’s commercialization. Investment can improve facilities, attract talent and grow the sport. Higher prices and distant ownership can disconnect supporters from their clubs. Success should not be measured only through revenue or attendance. We should ask whether fans have a voice, who benefits and what remains for the community afterward.

The experience also taught me about culture beyond football. A University of Toronto presentation introduced us to Indigenous histories and traditions in Canadian sport. Students from Doha spoke about Education City, family customs, hospitality and respect. I brought Mexico into the conversation through its football culture, its history as a World Cup host and my experience of growing up between two countries.

Before travelling from Ottawa, I read about Qatari history. I learned that listening is not passive; it is a form of respect. My political science courses teach me about diplomacy through governments and institutions. This experience showed me its personal side: curiosity, preparation and a willingness to reconsider what you think you know.

Football did not make our differences disappear. It simply made it easier to start talking about them. That is what I will remember most. Cultural diplomacy does not always begin in a government office. Sometimes it begins with 20 students, one shared interest and the decision to listen to one another.

Heather Greenwood Davis thought she was taking her husband and two children – aged six and eight – on a year-long trip around the world. Instead, the 29-country adventure would become one of the defining stories of her career.

If you want to really understand somebody, take a close look at how they spend their money. The same thinking applies to state and non-state actors, such as terrorist and criminal organizations.