Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for those reflections and those thoughts. You've hit a number of important points. I'll just make one point regarding country leadership, which is one thing you observed as being absolutely necessary for successful interventions. The Government of Canada actually participates in the universal periodic review of many countries.

Foreign Affairs committee  There's certainly scope for more of that to happen. I don't know of any particular efforts that have been made. Certainly, in our view, that is a role of government as a development partner. Government, along with providing development cooperation, needs to be engaged as a key partner in those policy dialogues at the country level.

Foreign Affairs committee  We're making progress in terms of changing governments' attitudes. There have been definite steps to eradicate FGM and to eliminate early and forced marriages through legislative efforts. However, those efforts are not sufficient to curb this immense problem. In the next decade alone, 142 million girls will be forced into early marriages, so at the present time whatever efforts are happening are not sufficient to curb those numbers.

Foreign Affairs committee  I have no specifics, but those are figures that have been collected by DFATD.

Foreign Affairs committee  Likely it's a mix of interventions relating to commodities and the actual provision of information and services, as you say.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can't necessarily speak to specifics around how the Government of Canada handles that. Certainly it's clear that a variety of development partners, donor country partners, will work through their presence, their embassies in countries, to hold dialogues with host governments on particular issues.

Foreign Affairs committee  Specifically we look at comprehensive sexuality education as an important intervention in terms of the long-term prevention of early and forced marriage, but also in terms of ensuring that adolescent girls and young women have the information they need to carry out fertility decisions, to protect themselves from HIV, and so on.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a great question. I think the package being proposed by the Open Working Group for Sustainable Development Goals is very robust. Probably no stakeholder that has been participating in those negotiations, whether a government, a non-governmental agency, or a UN agency, is perfectly pleased with the final outcome.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the question and for the comments as well. The statistic that gives the most recent estimate of deaths related to unsafe abortion globally is 48,000 women and girls per year. Even more—probably about ten times as many—experience disabilities due to maternal causes, in addition to that number.

Foreign Affairs committee  Definitely I think that Canada merits some praise with respect to the Muskoka initiative, in terms of prioritizing maternal, newborn, and child health, though in terms of the specific funding for family planning, there is certainly scope for greater investment by Canada for those issues.

Foreign Affairs committee  Honourable members, I want to begin by thanking you all for the invitation to present before you today. For those of you who are not familiar with it, Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights is a Canadian organization working domestically and globally to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights.