International Trade committee  As I understand it, with the Chile agreement, it's not enforced yet, so the committee hasn't been set up or started to run activities. In the chapter, the language at the moment isn't specific about who that committee should be. As you say and in our experience as well, often the groups that do get access to these spaces are those that are already quite privileged.

International Trade committee  I think it very much starts with having a strong analysis of the existing situation and the potential gendered impact of the trading relationship. For example, the UN Conference on Trade and Development has developed a gender tool kit to do an economic analysis, from a gender perspective, of how the trade agreement would affect the different economies and the sectors where women are concentrated.

International Trade committee  Oxfam focuses on women's rights and gender equality, but one of our proposals is to really strengthen the provisions in a later chapter of any trade agreements to make sure that the provisions within labour chapters are much more specific, and that any kind of labour rights abuses would be subject to binding mechanisms, and there would be much stronger recourse for instances such as child labour or any kinds of labour rights abuses.

International Trade committee  Thank you for inviting Oxfam Canada to present to the committee today. Oxfam works in 90 countries to support long-term development and provide life-saving humanitarian assistance. We are also an advocacy and campaigning organization committed to addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality.

International Trade committee  In the Chile labour chapter?

International Trade committee  I don't know if it's in the Chile labour chapter, but for NAFTA, we would propose to have the pay equity measures included in the labour chapter. You could use the national data from all three countries. You would have to choose which country—

International Trade committee  It was about best practices.

International Trade committee  I think some of the approaches that Canada is proposing are quite new. Chile, obviously, is the country that originally proposed the use of the gender chapter, and I note that they're leading on a lot of this work as well at the moment. Sweden also has in its feminist foreign policy a whole section on trade and on supporting women to benefit from trade as well, but they obviously operate through the European Union, so it's slightly different in terms of what they can do on their own.

International Trade committee  No, not the moment. We're not aware that there are any plans for those to be carried out. I know that they would carry out the usual gender-based analysis, but we think the assessment could probably go a lot further and look at a lot more detail. Julie mentioned that UNCTAD, the United Nations centre for trade and development, has developed a tool box on gender and trade.

International Trade committee  Certainly, the labour chapter is really important, since women's economic inequality is so prevalent throughout the world of work, and also because there's an opportunity with the labour chapter to have some language on gender that would be included in the binding part of the labour chapter.

International Trade committee  Yes, I think there have been a few studies of the gendered impacts of NAFTA, but in very specific sectors—for example, in the maquila industries in Mexico or what happened to women farmers in Mexico. What we're asking for is an overall analysis that would bring the impacts together from across the three countries and also look at the predicted impacts over time as to what we're negotiating now.

Foreign Affairs committee  The first thing to note is that, overall, there is a real lack of evidence and documentation, and that's globally on DFI activities. A lack of transparency is something that civil society has been raising time and time again. That's why at this moment we are calling as well for this DFI to make sure that it's open and transparent and can set the goals of what it's trying to achieve and then be able to report on them as well—involving local actors, as you said.

Foreign Affairs committee  All of the learning from working to try to achieve gender equality through development indicates that you need to have stand-alone projects that target women and girls, but you also need to make sure to mainstream gender equality throughout the programs. You need to have a gender analysis of any program, which you're implementing to ensure that women and girls will be able to benefit equally from that program.

Foreign Affairs committee  This is a partnership between the World Bank, IFC, and Goldman Sachs. It's called “10,000 Women” and it's a program that aims to reach 10,000 women and small and medium-sized enterprises with financial products but then also with training and mentorship. It's been running for a number of years and I think all the evaluations have shown much stronger businesses have been invested in, and job creation, and also that the women who have had the training and mentorship have reported very strong results.

Foreign Affairs committee  This is the independent mechanism for accountability, which the Dutch FMO set up in very close consultation with civil society organizations, including the Dutch affiliates in Oxfam. It's set up as an independent mechanism where communities affected by investments made by the FMO can take any concerns or complaints and be able to experience that accountability.