Thank you. I'll try to be quick.
RESULTS is a national grassroots advocacy organization. We are committed to creating the political will to end poverty and needless suffering. We champion cost-effective, proven, tangible, and impactful solutions that will benefit the world's poorest and, by extension, the world as a whole. Our volunteers across the country are parents who think that no parent's child should die needlessly from lack of immunizations that cost pennies. They are neighbours who think that nobody around the block or around the world should die from a disease that costs dollars to treat. They're everyday citizens from coast to coast, and they're your constituents. I'm honoured to be here today to represent their views.
I bring three recommendations. The first relates to the quantity of aid. The second relates to the quality of our aid and specifically calls to put Canada as a global leader in the area of child survival and maternal health. The third is a call to increase Canada's commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, one of the single most important global interventions of our time.
First, in terms of the quantity of aid, the most important message I want to bring today--so if I get cut off early, this is the one to listen to--is that Canada does not stand alone in the world. We live in an increasingly global economy and community, as we have seen that markets are closely linked and external events have the capacity in an instant to affect our national priorities, policies, and directions. In this increasingly interconnected globe, it's irresponsible to ignore the fact that 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is a place where hunger and disease live, where children often don't live to reach school age let alone attend school, where even the most basic necessities like access to a toilet are a luxury, and where the shelter of a shack in a shantytown is a blessing. And one in six people on this planet live there.
The extent of global poverty has had an impact on the fabric of our planet, on global security, on public health, on the environment, on climate change, and on the economy. That is why I'm here to say unapologetically that despite and even because of the economic crisis, aid is important. Forty years ago last week, because of Canada's leadership, the rich countries of the world pledged to commit 0.7% of their GNI to aid. Today, of the 22 countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, 16 have set a timetable to reach that goal. Canada is one of the six that has not. We have around 0.3% right now, not even half of where we should be. So we're calling on you to put aid on the agenda in this budget, to explicitly say that we should be on a timetable to go to 0.7%. In the past, 8% increases to our aid budget have been legislated. It's unclear whether those increases will continue next year. If you can make an explicit commitment to make sure that is clear, then that would be incredibly valuable to the world, to this country, and would show tremendous Canadian leadership.
How am I doing?