Afghanistan Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here.

I'm new on the committee, so I have a lot of reading to do to catch up to where the rest of the committee is, but I appreciate some of the reading material that I have been provided.

I would like to pick up on the issue of education. In some of my reading I found that there were some differences in literacy rates in different pieces of material that I had read. So as one of the benchmarks that we established, I wonder if you could just expand on that issue of education. I read the minister's notes when she said women and girls are now pursuing an education, which is one of the strongest tools we can provide them as they pursue their futures. So I wonder if you could expand on where we are.

One of the things you did identify were some of the barriers that we see to girls being in school. Are those starting to be mitigated? Are we seeing some changes? What response are we getting from women in having access to education, and what are they choosing to pursue in those things?

If I could just wrap one other thing into this question--just following up on what my colleague Mr. Wilfert said earlier--about doing one thing and one thing well, I wondered how well the education component will work if there isn't security attached to that. What do we need to do in concert with education in order to ensure that these programs go forward?

[Françoise Ducros]

Thank you. This is great as we plan our ongoing programming.

I just pulled the numbers on literacy before I came here. Afghanistan is at the very bottom of the human development index on literacy. It's at the very bottom of the human development index on maternal and child mortality. The additional thing with Afghanistan is that there is a significant difference between the literacy rates of women and those of men. There is a 4.5% general rate of literacy in Kandahar, and a 1.5% rate for women. The figure of 4.5% is pretty low anyway, but 1.5% is lower.

The same thing goes for the overall literacy rate in Afghanistan, which is about 14.5%—I'm thinking from memory—and 12.5% for women.

Before we began our work there in 2001, there were about 400,000 kids in school. They were almost entirely boys. The Afghan numbers themselves put the number of children now in school at 6.2 million.

The barriers to women going to school or girls going to school, aside from various other issues, include things like security. Besides working on what we've done in the training of teachers and in providing access to school, we've had to deal with things like providing boundaries around the school so that mothers will feel comfortable taking their kids to school. We've had to deal with providing transportation to get them to school.

Often the issue is having women teachers. Parents won't send their girl children to male teachers. Obviously there's always been a focus, as we've looked at teacher training colleges, on providing not only training for women teachers but also the same sorts of security mechanisms, including lavatories for women and barriers around the teacher training colleges so the women can go there, as well as transportation for the women to get there.

One of the projects, which seems very local but becomes very general, is actually providing a female dormitory in a teacher training college that allows women to train. We can then disperse them around Kandahar province or around the school.

We're also looking at working with parents and communities in the various communities and at the different sites so they can identify those issues that are the barriers, whether those be transport, security, or other aspects or other types of things that prevent them from going to school, including the ability to get there at a different time. We've tried to work with the communities to look at those issues.

We're looking at working with the communities and community ownership and dealing with community-based education in some instances where no matter what you do, you're not going to get kids to go to school. As much as you train those teachers and provide those schools or rehabilitate them, you also have to have an alternative, which in some instances, in those areas, means providing community-based education, either in someone's home or in another type of community. Aside from the schools, we've established 4,000 community-based schools.

Just very quickly, one of the issues to point out as we move on in forward programming is that Canada, very early on, was the leader at what was then called the education review board, working with the Ministry of Education, to deal with problems that were national in scope. Then they could draw down locally. It eventually became like a human resource development board.

It's as important to work at the local and community level as it is to work with other donors, so that when we move from $200 million to $100 million, we're still leveraging other efforts, and we'll continue to do that.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

So we really do need to work in tandem with governance issues—

[Françoise Ducros]

Absolutely.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

—because education isn't going to stand on its own. However, I think what I'm hearing from you is that even though the time has been rather short by comparison, we have made some incredible gains, particularly in seeing girls in school, and we can expect that is going to continue with this new focus.

There is one other thing I want to be sure we clarify here. When you talk about rehabilitating schools, it's not just putting up a new wall or patching something. You're actually adding capacity. Is that correct?

[Françoise Ducros]

That's absolutely correct.

In order to avoid the notion of any rehabilitation being very small, and in order for a school to be deemed rehabilitated, we had to add at least a whole new classroom, which would increase capacity to add 32 children. So in some instances, schools were built from the ground. In Kandahar City, we got 400 kids. In other instances, there were schools that were rehabilitated. But in order for them to be counted, you had to have an additional 32 children that would attend a class. Is that number right?

[Melanie Boyd, Director, Planning, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency]

It could in fact be more if you have multiple shifts.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

And is that happening? Do you see multiple shifts in the schools?

[Françoise Ducros]

Oh, absolutely. Most schools throughout the country have two shifts.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

So we've moved the benchmarks, and we've increased the number of girls in schools.

What about female participation in schools? Is the literacy rate for women increasing?

[Françoise Ducros]

We aren't yet in a position to measure increases in the literacy rate. We are in a position to say that when the benchmark was set there were no children that we saw in formal schooling. There were 400,000 boys. There are now between 6.2 million and 7 million kids, of whom one-third are children in the community-based education programs. We can identify where girls are going. We have 110,000 extra teachers trained in the country, of whom one-third are women. We have trained 3,000 teachers in Kandahar, and we're working with the Ministry of Education on the capacity-building side to encourage training and accreditation focused on women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We're going to have to wrap it up there.

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to Ms. Ducros and her colleagues for being here today.

When this committee visited Afghanistan last year, I was impressed with the work that CIDA and all of its staff and associates were doing. Canadians know quite a bit about what the military is doing there, but I don't think they know enough about the good work that CIDA is doing. I was proud of the work that I saw your colleagues doing in difficult circumstances. And I think Canadians need to know more about it.

I would like to pass on a message, through you, to CIDA: please do more to communicate to the Canadian people the success of the many programs and good work that Canada has undertaken in Afghanistan. They need to know how we're making positive changes in their lives. It's partly the responsibility of all members of Parliament to do that. I've been trying to get that message across when I speak in my riding and elsewhere, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do likewise. We need to get that message out, because Canada is taking a leadership role in bringing about a positive change for the people of Afghanistan, a change that will benefit the people in that region and further the cause of world peace for many years to come. So thank you for that.

You mentioned in your opening comments that one of our priorities is the rule of law and human rights. I'd like to explore the justice system in Afghanistan and what we're doing to further its development.

We heard from a number of commentators when we were in Afghanistan that one of the few things the local population actually liked about the old Taliban regime was the justice system, which they found impartial and not corrupt. If you had a land dispute between two farmers, they felt that they could get a decision and that the decision would not be based on who bribed the judge with the most money. We're doing a lot to train the Afghan police to make sure that they're the front line of the justice system and that they're using proper investigative techniques. I think our Canadian police officers there are doing a wonderful job in that regard.

Is CIDA or any other branch of the government doing any training or mentoring of judges, prosecutors, or other personnel in the court system there? If not, should we be doing that? What would you suggest?

[Françoise Ducros]

I had the benefit of speaking with my colleagues on the priorities being addressed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. DFAIT will be focusing on justice and the rule of law. They are developing that programming. I am not privy to where they are going on that programming, but it has been identified as a priority for capacity-building.

CIDA would work with our colleagues to share the lessons of capacity-building and placing people in the Ministry of Justice and elsewhere. It's not my lead, although I can assure you that it is something they are looking at.

With respect to programming in 2011, the Department of Foreign Affairs has been doing some work, particularly in the area of legal drafting, and on capacity-building in the Ministry of Justice. I can't speak to the training of judges and prosecutors, although I understand they're looking at a broad-based approach through GPSF, the Global Peace and Security Fund.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay. That's not the thing in my car that tells me how to get to Parliament.

[Françoise Ducros]

They've certainly looked at the problem and have come up with the same diagnostic as you have and they're looking at where they will work on that.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you very much for that. It's obviously important to build the confidence of the Afghan people in the democratically elected government there, so I certainly encourage you to look into that more.

Can you tell us how, in your view, the transition of Canada from a military role to a non-military role will affect aid provided to Afghanistan?

[Françoise Ducros]

The transition out of Kandahar and a specific focus on Kandahar with the withdrawal of the forces will mean that beyond 2011 we won't be doing specific programming from an aid perspective in Kandahar. We have every reason to believe that in those projects that we've started, we have built in sustainability and we will certainly be in a position to share that experience with our colleagues as they take over. There's a huge American surge, including on the civilian side of things.

Our projects were designed to be finished in 2011, and hopefully, and I believe, will be sustainable because of the mechanisms we've put in place, including through mechanisms like the ACCC, which we heard about earlier.

Based on the experience we have and the lessons we've learned in Kandahar, we're hoping to be able to draw on that experience and feed into the national programming so that we have an understanding of how the programming on the ground affects the national programming. The national programming will be impacted by the drawdowns and we'll continue to work on that. The issue is more that it won't be Kandahar-specific.

On the issue of programming, we have a pretty broad experience of working in Afghanistan. Most of that programming outside of Kandahar existed prior to that and will continue to go on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Dion, please.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon and welcome, Ms. Ducros, Ms. Boyd, Mr. Melanson.

I have two sets of questions. The first one is about costs and money and the second one is about capacity-building.

On the money, according to the Government of Canada, the submitted cost of Canada's engagement in Afghanistan for 2011 to 2014 is $700 million per year, over three years. The final cost will be known in 2014, but that is the estimate.

I am a bit confused by the numbers you gave to Mr. Bachand. Can you tell us exactly what CIDA's share is of the $700 million per year?

[Françoise Ducros]

I can't speak to the question of the total cost and the question of the training we are working on with the Government of Canada.

However, in terms of CIDA, our programming has already been announced by the Minister. It will be nearly $100 million a year over the next three years. That is connected with the $700 million in costs that were announced and the $75 million for five years that was granted in the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

To answer Mr. Harris's question, CIDA is there for the long term. There is no reason to think that CIDA will not continue to be in Afghanistan after 2014. This is about $100 million a year for the next three years, including the initiative you referred to and the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

We might still be surprised that a military mission that is becoming a civilian mission is spending only one dollar out of seven on the responsibilities you have.

[Françoise Ducros]

I will leave it to my political masters to answer questions about the mission.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

How much of that money will be allocated to humanitarian assistance through CIDA?

[Françoise Ducros]

We're still working through the programming initiatives and the division between the $100 million as we draw up on what we're currently trying to do. The division of the $100 million into the three priorities has yet to be fully established, depending on how we design the program.