Foreign Affairs Committee on March 25th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's great to have you here today. We recognize the good work you're engaged in. I note that the 60th anniversary of your organization is coming up next year. You had commented on the tremendous number of displaced persons around the world already. My colleagues have mentioned a number of those places. So it looks like, sadly, work for your organization is not going to diminish or disappear very soon.

I want to ask about a country that we haven't discussed so far and that has recently been a concern in a big way, and that's Sri Lanka. I'd ask for an update on Sri Lanka and the situation of internally displaced persons there, and then I'll pass any remaining time to my colleague Peter Goldring.

Thank you.

[His Excellency Antonio Guterres]

We are very strongly involved in Sri Lanka. There has been meaningful improvement in the situation, probably linked to the election process. Elections always help in this kind of situation.

We were facing very dramatic opposition from the government in relation to a rapid return of people to their areas of origin; in relation to the freedom of movement of the people still in Menik Farm, the big camp; and in relation to access by NGOs and other organizations to some of the relevant areas. These were three very tough stumbling blocks. There was quite a difficult negotiation, but after some time and due to different factors—I believe the election was probably the most important one—we have witnessed very important progress in the two first aspects.

There has been a very meaningful movement of people back to their areas of origin. I think those who are still in Menik Farm are not there basically because the government doesn't want them to go back but because there are still problems with de-mining. So the resolution of that problem is going substantially well.

Freedom of movement has also increased substantially for the people in Menik Farm. They can now leave the camp. It's not yet perfect, but there has been some progress there.

There remains a meaningful limitation on the access of NGOs to Wanni district. We are still not yet there, but there has been meaningful improvement.

For me, the biggest concern is the future. The war was won, but now the problem is winning the peace. Winning the peace is creating the conditions for full integration of Tamil population in the context of the state. The Tamils are almost not present in the political system, almost not present in the administration, and I would say totally not present in the police and the military. If there is not a very determined government policy now to fully integrate the Tamils, I'm afraid that in five years' time we might go back to a situation of conflict.

This is something on which I believe all countries need to put a lot of influence in relation to the Government of Sri Lanka, to make them understand that winning the war does not necessarily mean that the problem is solved. The problem is still there and still needs to be addressed from the point of view of building a real multi-ethnic state.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're out of time. We'll have to finish with Mr. Dewar.

You have five minutes, sir.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our guests. I have a couple of quick questions, but a comment to start.

As much as I support and laud the government's reinvestment on the border of Burma and Thailand, I am concerned about the drawdown in their support to UNRWA. I know that's not your area because of the nature of it, but it remains a concern for many of us.

Regarding the proposals that we're hearing from the minister--and you spoke with him--just in terms of your perspective, I'm getting from you that if you're going to change anything, you should ensure that there is access to refugees. You've been clear about that. As well, notwithstanding that we might design a system that says we'll designate countries that are “safe”, there still needs to be access from refugees notwithstanding that nomenclature.

I say that because I think of instances where people are suffering from gender discrimination or sexual identification. I think of homosexuals, gays who are being persecuted. If it's seen as a designated safe country that they've come from, and yet there is persecution, I would submit that if we don't involve the system, or have access to the system, that actually we're failing in our responsibilities.

So I'd like you to just clarify; when we see streamlining, I'm hearing from you not to two-tier it, to make sure that we're still having access for all, and it should be based on your claim, not based on your designation of country according to us.

The second thing is on the DRC. We have been asked as a country to support the peacekeeping mission there. What I'm hearing you say is that there's a link between conflict resolution, obviously, and refugees, and since the DRC is one of the top five in terms of internally displaced...Canada has been asked and we have said no, we can't at this point contribute resources. However, in 2011 we are changing our commitment to the mission in Afghanistan.

You can't comment in terms of what we should do, but would you see it as a welcome move in terms of helping the situation in the DRC to support the peacekeeping mission in the DRC that is still under-resourced?

[His Excellency Antonio Guterres]

This issue has been in the centre of our discussions this morning. I think they were very constructive discussions.

I don't want to anticipate what our position will be, because it depends on texts that are not yet available, but I think we had a very good common understanding with the minister. We do not oppose the fact that there is the possibility of a safe country list, and that is an instrument that allows for a streamlining of procedures. We do not oppose that, provided that fact does not impede first access to asylum, even from people coming from...and a special consideration of groups within this context.

For instance, one can have a democracy with serious problems of genital mutilation. Mali is an example. Mali is a democratic country, but genital mutilation is still a practice there. So for gender, for problems of sexual preference, there is persecution even in democracies.

I believe there was quite an important consensus this morning on the need for whatever legislation is adopted to create the safeguards to allow for these kinds of situations to always be taken into account. Now, of course, it will depend on how the texts are presented, and we will give our opinion based on those texts, but this was very openly and frankly discussed, and I believe there was a common understanding on what needs to be done to preserve access in those circumstances.

About DRC, I can only agree that supporting the DRC peacekeeping operation, the supports to humanitarian action in DRC, is very much welcomed because the level of humanitarian disaster in the DRC is out of proportion. In the DRC, we have people dying every six months, people who should not be dying, dying in numbers that correspond—if you remember the tsunami of four years ago—to one tsunami every six months. So it's really a level of tragedy...and women, of course, are victims of all kinds of terrible things. So DRC is a country in which we are very strongly involved.

I would like to leave a set of tables to the attention of the members of this committee, tables that show one thing that I believe is very important for a relevant donor country like Canada. We are trying to use your money not to spend it on the organization, but to spend it on the people we care for. So in these four years, we have reduced 300 people in Geneva, which means a 30% reduction in headquarters. Headquarters costs that were 14% of our costs are now less than 10% of our costs. Staff costs were 41% of our organization, now they are 27%, which means more and more is used directly by outside organizations, and more and more NGOs are involved in our activities, and we do our best to make sure there is value for money in the contributions that are given to us.

I will leave a group of tables. There are 15 copies or something, and if they could be distributed to the honourable members of the committee, I would be very grateful.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I think I speak for my colleagues when I say that it was great of you to be here today. We wish we had more time, but we're grateful for the time we had. We wish you all the best as you spend some more time with officials throughout the rest of the day on your trip here in Canada.

On behalf of all the committee, thank you very much.

[His Excellency Antonio Guterres]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll suspend for five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Welcome back. We continue, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2).

We're going to have a meeting with the Canadian Global Campaign for Education. We have Kevin Watkins, the director of the Global Monitoring Report.

Mr. Watkins, we want to welcome you here today. We were trying to have some other witnesses, but a whole bunch of things were going on today. Regardless, we're glad you're here. Maybe if you could, just take a few minutes to tell us a bit about what your organization is up to. Then we'll go through some questions and answers from some of the MPs here. We'll try to get at least one round in.

Mr. Watkins, the floor is yours.

[Dr. Kevin Watkins, Director, Global Monitoring Report, Canadian Global Campaign for Education]

Thank you very much.

I'm director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report in UNESCO. We've been working very closely with the Global Campaign for Education globally and here in Canada. In fact, they provided some of the submissions you have before you.

Maybe I'll run through a couple of things very briefly.

I don't think I need to tell anybody on this committee how important education is. I think that in Canada, maybe more than in any other OECD country, you've seen the power of education to transform people's lives and to change the direction of a whole country. In particular, you've paid a lot of attention to issues like equity gaps, inequalities in education, and achieving high average levels of education across the board.

I'm often struck, when I visit developing countries, by the sheer level of drive, commitment, and ambition that people living in the most desperate of circumstances— in slums and drought-prone rural areas—have to get their kids a decent quality of education. I really think this is an area in which Canada has a very proud record, which, if I may say as a non-Canadian, you somewhat understate. If you look at your aid program, I think you're currently giving around $210 million to basic education. You've doubled the commitment to basic education since about 2002. That aid is being directed to countries in which there has been quite extraordinary progress. In Afghanistan, which is one of your major recipient countries, we've seen the number of girls in school go up by a factor of five in the last seven years. In Tanzania, another one of your major recipients, we've seen the out-of-school numbers drop by about three million. Senegal, another major recipient, has been one of the fastest movers in terms of getting girls into school.

I know that maybe even in this committee in the past you've had witnesses who have told you that aid doesn't work. I think in all of those examples, if you went and spoke to any of those kids or any of those parents, they would tell you a very different story, which is that your Canadian aid has made a big difference. Also, I believe that you have a big opportunity now as the host of the forthcoming G8 to draw on your own leadership and use it as an example of what other governments in rich countries could do to step up to the plate and make a difference in education.

One of the things we do in our report is monitor progress in education across six key goals. I'm not going to go into each of those goals, but really, the headline story that emerges is that there's a lot of good news out there. We've seen out-of-school numbers globally come down by about one-third in the last decade, including in countries that have seen a rapid expansion of the school-age population. That's a very real and a very positive achievement. We've seen gender gaps across Africa and South Asia narrowing, in some cases spectacularly. We've seen dropout rates falling and more kids getting into school and completing education. All of these are very positive developments, and I think they give the lie to the myth that we can't make rapid progress towards these goals that the international community has set.

There's a bad news part of the story. The bad news is that promises were made to the world's children back in 2000, including a commitment to get all children into school by 2015. We estimate that with current trends, that number will be missed by at least 56 million primary school-age children. That is a very big number to miss an achievable target by, and it's only the tip of the iceberg, because of course many kids will also get into school and drop out. Many millions more will get into school and get through primary school but come out without basic literacy or numeracy skills, because the quality of education is lacking.

That story, I think, matters, because education is a basic right. But it also matters for other areas Canada has a deep interest in. For example, you've prioritized as a country maternal and child health for the G8 summit. There's a very strong rationale for doing that. But if you want to cut child mortality, one of the most effective ways to do it is to educate young girls. A girl with a secondary education who becomes a mother will have children who are three times, or more, more likely to survive to the age of five than a mother who has no education. If you want to save lives, investing in education is one of the stories here.

Also, if you want a functioning democracy and a transparent government, how do you achieve that without education? If you want shared prosperity in an increasingly global-based economy, how do you do that without accelerating progress towards education goals? One of the messages of our report is that we need to think of education not just as a right in itself, but as one of the great drivers and multipliers for progress in other areas.

What do we need to do to change the picture that I've set out to ensure that all kids are in school by 2015 and getting a decent quality education? First and foremost, we emphasize that developing country governments need to do an awful lot more to reach their most marginalized populations, to scale up investment in resources, to train the teachers who are needed to achieve the goals.

But even with the best effort on the part of the developing country governments, we estimate there will still be a global financing gap of around $16 billion annually. Of particular concern is the fact that we've seen aid to basic education stagnating in recent years. Last year, for the first time, it actually dropped by over 10% globally. It's a little bit of a concern in this context that we've also seen Canadian commitments to basic education aid also tailing off. That draws a worrying picture for the future.

We have an opportunity to change this picture at the G8 summit, but I think we have to recognize the window of opportunity is closing. The year 2015 may seem like a long way away, but it's one primary school generation. You can't leave it until 2013 or 2014 to put the investments in place. We have to act now. That's why we would like to see the Canadian government really bringing education to the centre of the G8 agenda, not to displace child health and maternal health, but to build a bridge between the two, to recognize that progress in both of these areas has to go hand in hand. That involves I think citing your own leadership to call on the rest of the G8 to make the concrete commitments that are actually needed to produce results.

I think we have a huge challenge before us, but we also have an opportunity to solve it. I think, if I may say, to some degree it does fall to Canada to demonstrate real leadership at the G8 and to get us back on course to where we need to be.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Watkins.

Now we're going to circle the room. Since we have a little bit more time, we'll go back to our seven-minute rounds.

I'm going to start with Monsieur Patry.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Watkins, for being here this morning.

I read your report on EFA yesterday and also a little bit this morning. Is it all right?

[Dr. Kevin Watkins]

Thank you.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I skimmed through Reaching the marginalized. It is an excellent report on EFA. I am very pleased to note the progress made under each of the six goals.

However, it seems it will be difficult to meet one of these goals, which is to get all children into primary school by 2015--you mentioned this in your presentation. One of the main difficulties is the lack of teachers all over the world and the inequality in education between rural and urban areas. I think this is a huge challenge.

How do you anticipate solving this problem of rural versus urban areas as well as the shortage of teachers? Moreover, since Canada will be hosting the G8 and G20 summits, how should we approach this problem? Would more money really help? The lack of teachers is not only a matter of money. Teachers have to be trained. What is your view of the whole picture?

[Dr. Kevin Watkins]

They're both very good points. We estimate that the total shortage of teachers for sub-Saharan Africa in relation to those goals is around 1.2 million.

Of course as a government, hiring a teacher is not a one-off annual commitment. It's a central part of the recurrent budget. But that's also why governments need to make the long-term revenue-raising commitments to finance those investments and why donors themselves have to do far more as well. Because for a country to recruit teachers and put them in place, they have to have security over the flow of future aid resources.

One of the concerns that we draw attention to is that aid flows from some countries tend to be highly volatile and unpredictable, making it difficult for governments to plan. So there's a financing gap part of the story that has to be addressed. Of course governments need to ensure—as I think you've tried to do in Canada—that good teachers are linked up with underperforming schools and disadvantaged regions. We cite in the report a number of examples of countries that have tried to do that with varying degrees of success.

The rural-urban gap that you described is one of the great fault lines in education in developing countries, whether you look at adult literacy, attendance in school, enrolment rates, and so on. But cutting across that rural-urban gap is a gender divide. It tends to be poor, rural girls in particular who are the most disadvantaged and being left furthest behind.

Now there are very concrete proven interventions that can deliver results in this area. Fifteen years ago Bangladesh had one of the biggest gender gaps in the world. It now has no gender gap. Why has the gender gap disappeared? Partly because the government has put in place a stipend program, an incentive program for parents to put young daughters in school. In other words, there's a financial benefit for parents to do that.

Senegal has been trying to do something similar. We've seen a dramatic drop in out-of-school girl numbers in Ethiopia. That's happened because the government has invested very heavily—with Canadian support, actually—in building classrooms in the most disadvantaged rural areas, which has reduced the distance between communities and schools. Distance between communities and schools is a big factor for girls in particular.

I think in all of these areas there are proven results. Canadian aid is already supporting improvements in these areas. Maybe there's something to be said for looking at what has worked well and scaling that up and duplicating it in other aid programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Yes.

Just to confirm, as my friend Mr. Abbott would say, the statistics that we have been shown indicate that in 2006, the Government of Canada's total aid to basic education was $251.7 million. That was reduced to $185 million in 2007. In 2008, it was reduced to $150 million.

Is that right?

[Dr. Kevin Watkins]

That is the figure for commitments. These are forward-looking commitments.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

But the year 2008 is behind us.

[Dr. Kevin Watkins]

Yes. That graph is recording commitments that were made in the relevant years, so 2008 is the latest data that we have.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

We don't know what 2009 or 2010 looks like?

[Dr. Kevin Watkins]

To the best of my knowledge, no, unless there are internal CIDA reports that do that. In our report, because it's global, we take the latest data that's available for a comparison across countries. In this case it's 2008.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Have you received any kind of explanation or are you aware of any kind of explanation for that decision?

We ramped up from about $70 million in 2000 to $250 million, and now we're back down to $150 million. Is there any explanation for that?

[Dr. Kevin Watkins]

You know, I haven't personally discussed this with CIDA. I have a meeting with them this afternoon. I should say that one of the issues with commitments and aid flows is that they're very sensitive to lumpy investments and commitments to individual countries.

One of the things that I want to understand from my discussions with CIDA is why the profile looks like it does.