Honourable members, good evening, and thank you very much for the invitation. I'm here thanks to
a quick reminder by Mr. Fergus today. I really appreciate it.
I don't know any of the people [Technical difficulty—Editor] me, but I feel I know them at the really deepest level because I, too, come here to ask you for more of the same. Actually, I'd like more of your recommendation to increase foreign aid with clear, measurable, three-year rolling averages and targets set in advance, so we can all know what to expect and how we're going to get to the internationally agreed goal of 0.7% of GNI for foreign aid.
In a context where the United States, for instance, wants to make its aid a reward for countries that grovel before it, aid counts. Let's just take as an example what is happening in India. Oxford University just published new figures that help us see that poverty in India has been cut in half in recent years. In other words, investments in foreign aid produce tangible results, which are quite dramatic. Hundreds of thousands of people are raising themselves out of abject poverty and starting to find a way for them and their families to live with dignity.
I'm requesting that we have the same recommendation.
However, since the government increased aid but didn't quite increase it enough to catch up with economic growth, could you suggest what the first installment of that new goal would be? What would be the first of those targets that we should reach—the three-year averages? We could perhaps reach 0.27 next year. How about, I don't know, 0.30 a few years later? Could you please make concrete suggestions?
In the meantime, because this government has invested very cheaply in international aid, we need to make sure that our dollars are really leveraged. I think it would be great if this committee could recommend investments in very leveraged mechanisms.
I want to bring to your attention the Global Financing Facility. It's a consortium of aid institutions from around the world housed at the World Bank. It draws in funding from all other institutions. That means that $1 spent by the Global Financing Facility draws in funding from other institutions around the world, the UN, etc.
Interestingly enough, the recipient countries themselves learn how to tax themselves for what really matters, like nutrition, girls' health, maternal reproductive health.
Thank you very much.