In regard to the Universal Periodic Review, I'll start by saying that in general, all the UN member countries, once every four years, will go through or will be subjected to—whichever way you want to look at it—a review of their human rights record or their track record.
In the case of Ethiopia, their last review was in 2009. A final report came out in 2010. There were, I believe—and correct me if I'm wrong—142 overall recommendations, 99 of which were accepted by the Government of Ethiopia. So there was a good step forward on that front.
These included a number that Canada had initiated, including the need to create a human rights action plan. That action plan in fact has led to support for the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, which in turn has led to regional offices around the country being opened up to allow better access for Ethiopians, for the public.
So on that front, with 99 out of 142, is it perfect? It's not perfect. It's progress, definitely. Each country that goes through these reviews has to do its best to look at what it can take on board, and with what priority, to improve its record on human rights as it gets ready to show progress, hopefully, by the next time it is reviewed.
In the case of Ethiopia, there has been a lot of progress, but there have also been concerns, as you've noted. The charities act and proclamation is of particular concern. It does tend to narrow the space for freedom of expression and the activities of those charities, the NGOs that are active in Ethiopia.
So what does CIDA do about that? On several fronts.... As I said, we're bolstering the strength of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. We also do have a very strong network called CANGO in Ethiopia. It is a network of Canadian NGOs that are active with their Ethiopian partners in Ethiopia. We work closely with them in bolstering their capacity.
When we do a program, we look for opportunities where we can strengthen the opportunities for Ethiopian citizens to play a role. You may have heard talk of the protection of basic services initiative. It's a very large one that has been led by the World Bank for a number of years in Ethiopia. Within that, there's a subcomponent of the program that CIDA made a contribution to in years past. That actually built the right of citizens' participation within the whole notion of monitoring how the district administrations divvy up the moneys that are largely coming through the infrastructure support program, which is called PBS, or protection of basic services.
That was an example of CIDA successfully getting a mechanism built in that actually encourages the better monitoring of human rights, and then redress if things are looking like they might start to go wrong.