The House is on summer break, scheduled to return Sept. 15

Evidence of meeting #23 for Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was afghanistan.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Members speaking

Before the committee

Françoise Ducros  Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency
Melanie Boyd  Director, Planning, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency
James Melanson  Director General, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

4:55 p.m.

Director, Planning, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Melanie Boyd

That would be interesting.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Mr. Storseth.

Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming today.

Going 400,000 to six million children is really quite remarkable. I assume we're talking about the basics: education, primary school, grade school education. What kind of capacity does Afghanistan have for post-secondary education, that next level? And is there a plan to increase capacity so they're not reliant on leaving the country to get that?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

Actually, the issue of post-secondary education is one of the priorities that's been identified by the Government of Afghanistan in their national priorities, and the capacity is low.

You can give specific details, Melanie, if you'd like.

It is something other donors will be involved in and we're not involved in, but we would work with other donors if we can bring any additional input to the table.

Do you want to answer, Melanie?

4:55 p.m.

Director, Planning, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

It's very low. There are a couple of major universities that are well known and well regarded in the region. They were decimated during the civil war, including one in Kandahar City, frankly.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB

Just quickly, we talk about immunization and we talk about education and the great things that have been done over the last decade. My question is on the sustainability of this. Are we seeing leakage, as it is now? Going out for the next 50 years, as you're talking about, do we see this as being sustainable and being able to grow on this? Are we encountering problems in that?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

I can speak to the issue of the Ministry of Education, for example, because that's where we work. Very early on, we were working with people who were identified, including an Afghan Canadian, frankly, who's there at the director general level in the Ministry of Education and has been there for some years. We work closely with her. She's bringing on new people.

The only way it will be sustainable is if we build on the capacity they have in the different ministries. We've actually seen building of that capacity in the Ministry of Education, where we work, in the Ministry of Finance, where we've provided technical assistance, and they're going to have to bring on people and own it. There are some returns to Afghanistan of expats, including those who have been named the Governor of Kandahar, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Finance, all of whom have been trained in Canada.

It's going to be a long-term process, but we are seeing sustainability in those areas.

We also work on identifying where there are ministries that are demonstrating that sort of growth in capacity-building, and we try to target some of those instances at some of those places. We work with other donors to identify how they do it.

Yes, we are seeing sustainability in some issues, and in some places you see backwards steps, depending on how things are going. But even around various governors, you see the slow building of the governance structure around them across the country.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB

Thank you very much.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, do you have any more questions?

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Indeed I do, thank you.

One of the areas we've been talking about, obviously, is gender. The communiqué from the Kabul conference references the national action plan for women in Afghanistan and a benchmarking process. I guess there are two questions. Are we in line with that, or supportive of that, or partners in that? And I just want to ask about the Ministry of Women's Affairs as a department that's responsible internally for that sort of work. We've been told that the ministry is underfunded, comparatively speaking, that it doesn't have the resources to do the job it's set out to do.

And I'll just add the other piece to the Kabul conference—we heard this as well—the expectation and the commitment by participants to contribute half of the development aid directly to government to increase the government's capacity to deliver and be seen to do that in Afghanistan.

Is part of our work in supporting the women in Afghanistan supporting the Ministry of Women's Affairs? If not, why not?

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

I'm going to let Melanie answer the specifics.

I do want to address it, though, because it's been raised at a couple of committee hearings, the issue of 50% support directly to the Government of Afghanistan. We do not support the Government of Afghanistan directly. We support them through other mechanisms because we have concerns about that.

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

So we didn't sign on to that?

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

No. The Kabul conference basically talked about an objective of providing direct budgetary support up to the amounts of about 50%, direct budgetary or on budget. What we're trying to do is in order to meet the real valid concerns about how you fund government directly, we're trying to fund according to the Afghan principles, so to meet the principles of the Kabul conference of being on budget-type support but not direct budgetary support.

On the issue of funding the Ministry of Women's Affairs, there was a project whereby through UNDP, capacity-building and support was provided to the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Some of that has been done. There's certainly nothing that prevents us from looking at that in an ongoing fashion.

There are ways to build that capacity, or ensure they have the capacity to do the work they need to do, which we have done in the past.

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

That seems to be a bit of a contradiction. Either we're supporting them or not.

I'm reading the communiqué, and I've been assuming we are party to the communiqué. It actually directly says that they restate “their strong support for channeling at least 50% of development aid through the Afghan Government’s core budget within two years”.

We are supporting the ministry. How are we doing that, if not through money? Are we asking them what programs they want and then supporting those? How does it actually work?

5 p.m.

Director, Planning, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Melanie Boyd

Maybe I could just go back to the initial framing of your question. You were talking about the NAPWA and whether or not we support the overall national action plan for women in Afghanistan.

Part of the NAPWA is what happens inside the Ministry of Women's Affairs, but much of what happens with respect to NAPWA is what happens inside other ministries. So there will be benchmarks in the NAPWA associated with what the Ministry of Education needs to do to ensure that women's interests are advanced in the context of education. It is similar for health and for a variety of different areas.

It's possible for us—and we have the intention to do this and have done it in the past—to ensure that the ministries we're working with are actually implementing their NAPWA commitments. That's one piece. Then there's the piece you're asking about, of direct support to the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

As Ms. Ducros said, we can look at that. Our understanding is that there are two issues here. One is the issue of the political will of the government of Afghanistan; then there's the issue of funding. If there's not the political will to advance the NAPWA across ministries, and not just within the Ministry of Women's Affairs, you could potentially fund and support the Ministry of Women's Affairs without making much progress on women's rights.

So it's a complex picture, and we need to look at the full picture.

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission was mentioned; it is one of the success stories, I think. We heard from a fine representative of theirs last spring. Will we be continuing to support the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, in your view? Is that part of the plan?

5:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

We are certainly looking at that. None of the programming has been finalized. The strategy has to go before the minister, so I wouldn't want to say anything, but we're certainly currently looking at ongoing relationships and support for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Thank you.

Mr. Wilfert.

Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Going back to a question that was asked earlier, just so I'm clear on this, once Canadian military operations are concluded, how are we going to secure the security of the development personnel? Is it going to be through PSCs, private security contractors, and if it isn't, how are we going to work with ISAF countries in order to ensure that our own personnel are protected?

5:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

Currently, the personnel will be based out of Kandahar, which is one issue. On the issue of securing personnel in Kabul, we would use the security arrangements that are currently undertaken by the embassy. Some of it is just embassy security, and some of it is done through private security companies. Some of the work we currently do is also through trusted partners.

We are currently travelling around the rest of the country. CIDA officers visit other parts of the country and other projects, and those arrangements would be ongoing.

Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

How would we be affected, then, by President Karzai's decision of December last year that all PSCs will have to leave the country?

5:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

I think Mr. Karzai said that he's currently looking at disbanding private security companies, and the heads of mission, including our own ambassador, are currently working through the issue and how they would stage that with the president. We would be in the same position as other donors to work through the various arrangements that are currently being made.

Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Will you be able to apprise this committee of those arrangements once they have been...? Oviously we can't go forward with the plan that has been put forward unless we are very clear that security is in place.

5:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency

Françoise Ducros

It's a DFAIT lead, but I think I can undertake to have my colleagues provide the committee with updates as to what is happening on that front.