Thank you.
Good morning. I thank you for the opportunity to appear here today, and I'll try to use it wisely to make the best use of your time.
My name is Amanda Sussman and I'm here on behalf of the 2010 Canadian G-8 and G-20 Civil Society Co-ordinating Committee, which is an initiative involving more than 100 Canadian organizations and associations of organizations who themselves are supported by thousands of Canadians across the country. I'm also an advisor to Plan Canada, one of the world's oldest and largest international development agencies, operating in more than 66 countries.
Today I'd like to brief you on a major initiative of the committee that began last February in preparation for the Canadian presidency of the G-8. Essentially we began with what worked and what didn't work in Kananaskis when Canada last hosted the G-8 in 2002. One of the things that became clear was that, while there were dozens of organizations engaged in public campaigning using a variety of methods—from constructive engagement with the government all the way to street action outside the alternative summit in Calgary—there was no clearly articulated set of recommendations that could be communicated both to the government and to the public as to what it was that civil society organizations were actually looking for.
It was also unclear where there was broad consensus upon which political leaders could base their actions. So this time around, organizations are taking quite a different approach. The document you have before you entitled “An Agenda for Global Development” is a result of an in-depth process whereby a broad and diverse grouping of organizations agreed upon three critical and interlocking themes that should be at the centre of the 2010 agenda: combatting poverty, transforming the global economic and financial system, and making real progress on climate change. Within those themes, dozens of organizations have produced a clear set of policy recommendations to government that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and actionable from the government's point of view.
For instance, the recommendations on child and maternal health reflect the collective expertise of Canada's five largest international development organizations: UNICEF, World Vision, Plan Canada, CARE, and Save the Children, who themselves have decades of experience working on these issues first-hand around the world. Similarly, the recommendations on food security reflect the work of the Food Security Policy Group, an association of 35 agricultural and development organizations from across the country who work together to share their collective expertise as front line organizations working on food security. These are just two of the many associations who participated in the process to produce each of the recommendations you have before you.
I want to emphasize that the recommendations are not just supported by Canadian organizations alone. Over the past three days in Ottawa, the committee has hosted a global gathering of citizens organizations working on the G-8 and G-20 around the world. From our discussions, it became clear that the recommendations outlined in this document reflect a broader and wider international consensus, which will also be communicated to other G-8 and G-20 leaders in their respective countries.
On poverty, the committee began with a very straightforward question. What could the G-8 realistically accomplish to advance each particular issue in 2010, given that it is a short-term political body without institutional capacity to implement initiatives in the long term? The recommendations are mainly directed at what Canada can do as host of the G-8 to put the millennium development goals back on track. For those not familiar with them, the millennium development goals are an agreed-upon set of international goals set by world leaders at a series of summits throughout the 1990s. There are eight goals covering the world's most pressing issues, from poverty and hunger to HIV/AIDS and education, with specific targets to be reached by the year 2015.
Clearly, 2010 will be a decisive year for Canada and for the world, and our decisions on economic reform and climate change will determine the success of the world's efforts to reduce poverty and address global warming for the next generation and beyond. As host of the next G-8 summit, Canada can make the difference between two choices: relegating these aspirations to no more than a distant hope, or confirming a serious possibility that many of these goals can be a reality in our lifetime.
I also want to emphasize that we have made important progress in many cases and money has been well spent. Past investments in these issues are producing some remarkable results on HIV and AIDS, on education, and on immunization, just to mention a few. In Africa alone, citizens have used ODA flows to provide AIDS treatment to nearly three million people, dramatically reduce the deaths due to malaria, and help put more than 34 million children back in school.
What is unique about 2010 is that with many of the challenges discussed in this paper the causes are now well understood and the solutions are well known. Rather than large elusive goals that remain too difficult to tackle, this paper focuses on realistic steps that Canada can take to catalyze progress on many of the world's most pressing issues and promote a new model of globalization that is socially responsible, economically sustainable, and environmentally just.
What we are looking for here today is to initiate a constructive and effective dialogue between the Government of Canada and citizens groups based on best practices of G-8 summits in the past. We feel it would be essential to have this committee play an important role as a vehicle for Canadian stakeholders from many different sectors—for profit, not-for-profit—by holding a distinct set of hearings on the G-8 and G-20 agendas.
The process does not have to be too onerous to be effective. For example, it could be four to six hearings, with two in Ottawa and four distributed across key regions in the country, culminating in a concise report with clear recommendations to government. These hearings could be one of several things that parliamentarians do to engage their citizens on these key issues as world leaders come to Canada next year.
Beyond this committee, best practices from previous G-8 meetings include a wider dialogue between government and civil society globally, known as the Civil G-8.
We hope this committee will play an active role in facilitating this wider conversation, and we look forward to working with you on this initiative.