Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

Thank you.

First of all, you're absolutely right that the criminalization of men who have sex with men plays a big role in many countries and is a very important obstacle to effective prevention, to directing the resources to where they are really needed, namely, to reach these kinds of most-at-risk groups, to which men who have sex with men often belong, in many countries and societies around the world.

We have already addressed that in different ways. We have established what we call a particular fund for the most at-risk populations, so that countries can apply for particular programs that reach these most vulnerable groups and so they can also work on programs--for example, on decriminalization. They can apply for funding, because it's the kind of human rights framework in the country that often determines whether you can carry out effective prevention.

Looking into the future, the Global Fund, as mandated by its board, has been working on its new five-year strategy. That will be the strategy for 2012-16, and this strategy will be brought to the board next month at the meeting in Accra.

In that strategy, there's a particular section on human rights, and that is addressing exactly the points you have pointed out. The Global Fund is a financial instrument. We are there to support countries in prevention, care, and treatment activities, but this kind of promotion of human rights and the protection of people from human rights abuses is an important element of that. If this new strategy is approved by the board--in which Canada plays an important role--then I think it would help us to strengthen this aspect of our work for them.

[Svend Robinson, Senior Advisor, Parliamentary Relations, Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria]

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could add one point with respect to Canada's role in this. Recently, the Eminent Persons Group of the Commonwealth issued a report--in fact, Senator Hugh Segal from Canada is one of the 11 members of that Eminent Persons Group--in which they made precisely that point around the importance of decriminalizing in the context of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

I have to say that we're certainly very pleased to note that Foreign Minister Baird has explicitly stated that for Canada, at the meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government being held this week in Perth, Australia, both he and the Prime Minister will be specifically putting this item on the agenda, because 41 of the 54 Commonwealth countries actually still criminalize homosexuality. Canada, to its credit, has played a leading role in making sure that this will be one of the items that is put on the agenda of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. We're very pleased to note that leadership.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Earlier, you referred to fighting corruption to avoid any misappropriation of funds. Practically speaking, what do you plan to do to minimize corruption?

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

Thank you.

Yes, the Global Fund has always stated that we have absolutely zero tolerance for corruption, but at the same time we do know that we are investing our money in countries where there's a significant risk of corruption. That was exactly what this high-level panel report was about: to advise us on how we can best minimize this risk of corruption. You need some very clear control measures to kind of minimize that risk as much as possible.

We have already been using several levels. In every country where we invest, we employ so-called local fund agencies and our international auditing firms that are kind of a level of control at the country level, and then we have the Office of the Inspector General, that Mr. Samson talked about, that goes with teams of auditors and investigators into countries if we have any indication of fraud and corruption.

We have a whistle-blower policy. Anybody who detects any kind of irregularities can anonymously alert the inspector general to that. That's exactly the reason why we do detect a lot of cases of corruption at the country level. We then react immediately by suspending funding, by changing the principal recipients. We also have a number of judicial cases in a number of countries now, because we do not tolerate that kind of behaviour.

I think it is indeed a kind of common effort, I would say, among the Global Fund, the board, the bilateral agencies, and the multilateral agencies, to work together on the best possible mechanism to reduce this risk. We believe that one of the main and the best tools for that is indeed, transparency: make your disbursements very transparent, and where you detect irregularities, report about that, because that will also deter others from contemplating similar behaviour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

A couple of people who want to ask additional questions have caught my eye.

Why don't we go to Mr. Goldring and then come back to Madam Ayala?

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here today.

First, I would make the comment that it's my understanding that the percentage of the GDP contributed to foreign aid is calculated differently in different countries. Of course, when we contribute to aid in various countries, there are other issues that have to be attended to that possibly could be construed as being part of the aid contribution.

One of the very important ones was, of course, security of aid workers and NGOs in various countries. We have been contributing aid on projects such as, for example, China on its judiciary, and we also have democracy development in various countries too. They are all forms of aid contributions.

So if we look at the overall basket of aid that Canada provides, I would suggest that the 0.7% is a very simplistic way to be looking at aid contributions.

Second, I would like to have clarity on the comments that were just made on the Global Fund as to what its mandate is. Understandably, there would have to be investigations into fraud allegations, and of course those would be the ones that you know about. There are also the ones that we don't know about that you have to be vigilant for, that you have to try to pull out.

I would like to know specifically if the Global Fund is strictly mandated to be looking at HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria--disease--and family issues, and not in the human rights aspect, because the human rights aspect as an aid designation has a very broad scope and involves a lot of complexities depending on the country. I'd like a little bit of clarity that it is focused on its mandate as detailed here in these sheets.

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

The mandate of the Global Fund is very clear. We were created to mobilize resources to help countries address AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. But we are mandated, and are actually asked to support health system strengthening, for example, as it relates to AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. We are not an agency that in general supports health systems; that would go beyond our mandate. But often, as much as you need to strengthen the systems to achieve the desired outcome on AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, yes, we support the health systems.

That's the same way we approach the human rights issue. We are not an agency that has human rights as a broad mandate. But if it relates very strongly to HIV prevention--for example, if you cannot reach some of the most affected populations because they are criminalized and have no access to these services--then it becomes part of our mandate.

It is often quite interesting that the governments that work with us and are interested in reaching those populations—because it's in the country's interest also to bring these diseases down—are quite happy to work with the Global Fund, often because we have means to work with civil society, with the vulnerable populations. For example, in these country coordinating mechanisms, every country has to have representation of people affected by the diseases.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

When you produce a report such as this, would it not be an advantage to perhaps provide a more detailed breakdown for all of us to understand a little better...? So if you do have human rights issues that you are looking into, in conjunction with other issues, you'd have some sense and feeling of what percentage or proportion of your aid in a particular area it would be broken down into...?

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

Right.

We'll have to see whether we can provide that, Svend.

The percentage in terms of funding will be fairly small and we have to look into whether we have a breakdown on that. We obviously have much more comprehensive reports than what I presented here to you, which is our so-called results report, and we can easily make them available to you. There is quite a detailed breakdown on where our resources go in terms of diseases, programs, regions, and so on, including human rights.

Usually that is not a big investment in monetary terms. Often it is very important to provide the right kind of policy environment in the given country so that particularly the prevention programs can really reach the people who are most affected. But we're happy to provide you with more information on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

We're going to finish up with Madam Ayala, please.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Going back to the issue of corruption, you said that there are no public servants on the ground permanently but that there are some from time to time, which suggests a lack of democracy and a lack of transparency.

Among the steps required to make sure that the money provided is really used to meet the needs of people at risk, why are there no permanent public servants on the ground to ensure that the resources are properly used? Otherwise, it is all wasted money.

Why has this not been decided? Is it a matter of security? What is the reason?

You are too far removed from the reality and are perhaps somewhat disconnected from what happens locally. I understand that you said you visit those countries from time to time but I believe that there should be stricter control.

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

We actually have pretty close control assistance, but when the Global Fund was created, it was decided that these kinds of control systems would be outsourced. While we don't have an office in these countries, we employ what I describe as the local fund agents. These are people on the ground. These are auditing firms.

We have a kind of global tender for their services. We pay these companies, which are the well-known companies that many in the private sector--and others--would be using. They have a very close eye on what is going on at the country level. When we receive reports from the countries on the progress on the results, not only will we visit occasionally, we will always ask these auditing firms to verify the report. They are based in the country, so that is the first level of control.

I certainly hope you don't get the impression that we have no levels of controls because we have no offices in these countries. But in order to keep the administrative costs as low as possible so the money can go into programs, we have outsourced these services to the private sector to help us with this kind of oversight.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

You say it is a matter of costs, but isn't the cost of corruption higher? That is the point of my question.

We all know that there is corruption. Is corruption more costly than having people on the ground to control how the money coming from Canada is used?

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

Again, I would say we have those people on the ground; it's only that we pay them for their services rather than being staff members.

Secondly, yes, corruption has a high cost as well. We have detected many of these cases of corruption, and not only are we responding to that, we are also claiming the money back. We are able to detect corruption where it exists. In those cases, we are asking the recipients, mostly the governments, to repay the money so the money is not lost but can be reinvested in successful programs.

We are indeed doing a lot of due diligence to make sure the money is not lost. That would cost lives, basically. The money is reinvested in really successful programs.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

So, the money is reinvested?

[Dr. Christoph Benn]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

I have a few concluding comments.

Ms. Brown talked about being in Ethiopia. I had a chance to travel with an organization called RESULTS and to see what was going on there. I was very impressed to see what our Canadian dollars are doing, but also to see that they were also using local service providers, like the rural health posts. I was very impressed. I have to say that before I went I was probably a little more skeptical of what was going on there, but not after coming back.

It was incredible to see the kind of work that Canada is doing with in conjunction with your organizations and in conjunction with what's happening on the ground. I think it's encouraging, because that's what we all want to see. We want to see our dollars leveraged properly, transparently, and all those kinds of things. I congratulate you for doing a good job of that.

To our witnesses, thank you very much for your time.

I'm going to suspend the meeting for about five minutes and then we're going to go in camera to talk about business, which means we'll have to clear the room a little bit as well.

Thank you very much.

[Proceedings continue in camera]