Foreign Affairs Committee on April 28th, 2015

[Dr. Sarah Degnan Kambou]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

First allow me to say that I'm not an expert on the Convention of the Rights of the Child, so I'm not able to really speak to the heart of your question.

In terms of child marriage, the convention says that it's children under 18 other than, if its customary law, parents or local authorities who approve the marriage, and then it becomes a forced marriage. These are issues that we attempt to approach through global advocacy coalitions.

For example, Girls Not Brides, which is a representative coalition of communities across the world, speaks directly to legislation and works to ensure that 18 is the legal and enforced age of marriage in countries that are part of the coalition, always bringing to bear the evidence of the cost to the individual, the household, and the community should that age limit not be respected.

From an NGO perspective, our role is to continue to advocate for the best possible legislation and for its execution and implementation to protect the individuals under consideration and always to put the evidence before them as to why this makes the best sense in terms of both social and economic development.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

So there are meetings with the various governments of the countries that have signed on to these protocols, and that's done under an organized fashion.

[Dr. Sarah Degnan Kambou]

That's right.

It's organized, but it's not done by the global organization. It's done by the national chapter of the Girls Not Brides coalition. ICRW in the United States is the secretariat, so we would advocate with our government. The same would be true of Girls Not Brides Ethiopia. They would advocate with their government.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Would any of you others like to comment on the Rights of the Child?

[Kieran Breen]

Just from my Save the Children Fund experience from a few years back, the UN used to hold special sessions on the rights of the child, and there would be reports coming in from countries. I can remember the United Kingdom, for example, got in trouble for holding children 15 and under in adult prisons, because they didn't have enough.... You have countries getting a kind of score card being told you're doing well on this, you need to improve on that.

In answer to your question, if you want the reach of the UN convention, I think once again, in a lot of the countries I've worked in, the intention is there. It gets down to governance and the reach of government. Once again, when you get into a capital city, you get the middle-class elites, and there people understand the rights of children.

I've gone to Ethiopia; I lived in Ethiopia. People would talk about backwards people, as if it would be outrageous for a 13-year-old girl in Addis, say, who was middle class or what have you, with professional parents, to get married. People in the outward regions of Ethiopia have a different perspective. I think this is about getting into that cultural context, but also the ability of government to reach out.

I think this is where civil society plays a role, and often civil society groups are well placed to work at that level of challenging issues and perceptions.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

The sense seems to be that it's easy to sign on to the agreement, but do they walk the talk when they return to their country?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks, Peter, that's good.

We're going to start a third round with Ms. Brown to lead us off for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Mr. Stevenson, in your comments you talked about stability, growth, and good governance. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit, what that looks like as far as child protection is concerned.

I attended the Girl Summit with David Cameron in England last summer. I see from my notes from it that Zambia has a whole of government approach they have undertaken. Each ministry has a commitment within its scope of jurisdiction to address issues of gender equality.

In Somalia the government has committed to end some of the horrific cultural practices that girls undergo.

India has had legislation since 2006 to abolish early enforced marriage. In fact, they said that 250 million women voted in the last election.

In Pakistan they recognize they have a problem with early enforced marriage, but they've introduced laws there, too.

What does good governance look like? How does Canada help them with the enforcement part of that?

[David Stevenson]

I appreciate your observations in the questions in terms of governance in a number of countries.

Good governance can be explained in many ways, can't it, in the issues of child protection? I think one of the things affecting children and youth in many of the most vulnerable countries is the lack of a voice for women and mothers, particularly in parliaments and in other decision-making forums. You find that when there is a voice and an increased number of women in leadership positions, it does have a knock-on effect on the conditions for children and youth to reach their full potential.

A governments' legislative practices are crucial. With the global fund we had a decision point 2009, which is about recognizing the communities of the global fund, including men who have sex with men, and gay and lesbian communities. That decision said that we should only have global fund meetings in countries that do not have legislative restrictions on those kinds of choices.

In Africa there are three countries that qualify. This is something that we take as a given in terms of the rights of human beings to make choices in their relationships. I think legislation is also very important.

In terms of growth, others have laid out the case in the committee about the economic hindrances to children and youth reaching their full potential. I gave an example of adolescent girls in southern Africa. There are many more examples where economic growth simply helps create the conditions for freedom and movement of youth and children.

On stability, the humanitarian crises in the world pose constant protection threats to women, children, and youth. They are also an opportunity, frankly, to engage in positive ways to help set the conditions for lasting stability, as I laid out in my Rwandan example. At the same time through schools, health care, and legislative practices, we work to ensure the rights of children and youth are there for them to grow.

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

Ms. Kambou, to follow up on that, you said that you've been working on the issue of early and forced marriage for two decades.

Can you give us some examples of places where we are seeing some progress? Is there something that Canada can do to underpin that success and show other countries or cultural groups that this is an improvement in their economy, in the health of women, and in the education for children? Can you give us some examples?

[Dr. Sarah Degnan Kambou]

Yes, I can. Let me take you to India, since you mentioned India and South Asia in your introductory comments. Haryana state, which is just north of Delhi, has one of the most strikingly disproportionate sex ratios in terms of missing girls. It also had an unusual government in power from 1994 to 1998 that recognized that if they wanted to change downstream the value and experience of young girls, especially among the extreme poor, they would need to introduce some kind of social policy that would increase the value down the road of those girls. They put together the Apni Beti Apna Dhan social policy. Families earning under $15 a month at the time of the birth of their daughters had the option to enrol their daughters in this program, with the promise that if the girl remained unmarried at 18 years, she would receive a bond payment in her name totalling probably the equivalent today of $100 or $120, which is a lot of money for a family in those economic conditions.

Now, the reason I cite this as a case is that this was a natural experiment. You had families who opted in and families who did not, all coming from that same socio-economic class. These girls, of course, began turning 18 as of two years ago. We have been working with the Haryana state government to understand what has been the pathway and success of this social policy. The final data analysis is undergoing.

We have found that girls in the experimental group, those whose families signed them up for the bond, in fact stayed in school longer, and 11% of them have delayed their age at marriage, now that they're 18 or 19 years old. In the control group, made up of girls not enrolled in the program, the girls ended school much earlier and have had slightly more propensity to marry at an early age.

It's important to see the importance of social policy and conditional cash transfers in creating social change at an accelerated pace within a community. What's interesting about this particular strategy is that it was very delayed, very deferred, gratification. They had to wait 18 years for the results to kick in, if you will. There are now new programs across India that have intermediate payments or support to the girls and their families to help them along that pathway.

Looking at that kind of evidence, perhaps Canada could begin to integrate some of these findings or recommendations into their development policy about where they would like to invest in this particular issue in terms of solutions. To be able to replicate and scale these kinds of solutions I think makes very good sense. It's good investment sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

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

Mr. Chair, could we just ask that the information be submitted to the committee for our consideration?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Absolutely.

Is that possible, Doctor? When the final report is done, it would be great if that could be submitted.

Mr. Dewar, sir, you have five minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our guests who have provided some superb testimony, and certainly have different points of view. That's very helpful for our work.

I note, Chair, the discussion around what's happening in disaster areas. Sadly, we have a real-time example with Nepal. I was just reading that United Nations Population Fund representative Priya Marwah spoke about what's happening on the ground in Nepal. It's a quote from an article from the UN and it says: “Many women lose access to essential reproductive health services and give birth in appalling conditions without access to safe delivery services and lifesaving care.”

It goes on about some of the things we've talked about. Clearly there's work to be done.

I know in Ottawa here there's very strong support for an agency called Child Haven, which does extraordinarily good work with single mothers and children who have been abandoned. Right now, just talking to locals, people who are connected on the ground, people are safe but they're outside of the building and they have nowhere to live right now. That is safe, in a way.

Really, the work we're talking about here is in real time and in front of us.

I want to talk about an issue we've dealt with here at committee. We haven't touched on it yet today. It's the whole issue of child labour. We were seized with the issue after Rana Plaza. I think it was a wake-up call, frankly, for Canadian companies to establish what their responsibilities were. We know the whole supply chain issue is very important. I use Rana Plaza because people know of it, but we also know it's happening all the time, and it just so happened this factory collapse really focused our minds and our attention. We had issues around kids working in deplorable conditions.

I remember one story of an 11-year-old girl who didn't want to go back to work the day the collapse happened because they had been warned that there were concerns around the integrity of that building, but she was forced to by a manager. She was 11 years old. She survived and she was able to tell her story.

When we're talking about child protection, I think we should also include that.

I'm curious to hear from any of our witnesses.

Maybe, Mr. Stevenson, I'll start with you. What is the role? I've been very supportive of the initiatives of Loblaw, in particular, on the accord. We know the reality. It's not like we're going to shut down these factories tomorrow and kids are going to go and live in wonderfully supported homes. They go to work because they have to.

Where's that in the constellation of child protection, making sure that we provide supports, protection, and opportunities for kids who go to work because they have to be the breadwinners? It seems to me that in 2015, after the Kielburgers kicked off things I don't know how many years ago, we're still dealing with this stubborn issue. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on that issue.

[David Stevenson]

Frankly, I'd like to answer it from the point of view of the amalgamated department that you have helped work with here in Ottawa, the nexus of foreign policy/development and trade, and the opportunity that gives Canada to work in a cohesive fashion on this kind of issue. I think it's a huge opportunity.

From the foreign policy point of view, we're working with governments and advising on legislative issues, on diplomatic negotiations, to encourage the kinds of standards we have here in Canada—our global standards. That's what I was reflecting on when I talked about Canadian belief systems and so on in my intervention.

From the development point of view, obviously we should understand the reasons that private enterprises in developing countries have those kinds of practices in place. Our aid portfolio can help address some of those issues in an appropriate way, as part of a package. I think that's starting a little bit with the amalgamated framework.

Then, on trade, and certainly the trade practices of Canadian business interests, I can only say that I support the encouragement—for lack of a better expression—of Canadian investment interests to behave in other countries as they would behave in Canada, though, as you said in your question, understanding local conditions and norms and working towards that, potentially, in a gradual way. That would be the standard that should be applied.

I think it's doable with this combined foreign policy/development trade opportunity that we have coming out of Ottawa.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Could I have some other comments from other witnesses?

[Patricia Strong]

I'd like to add something that I brought into the talk earlier, and in response to a number of the questions, the emphasis on the strength of local organizations is absolutely critical. In the Red Cross, we really believe that the nationals of a country, wherever possible, should be able to speak and advocate for themselves, thus strengthening some really incredible and brave organizations that are working on these issues. Going back to the issue of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that's the same thing. It's an absolutely essential part of it. I think my colleague also raised this in his answer, that civil society is a real key here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Trottier, sir, it's your turn.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here today.

I want to build on Mr. Dewar's comments because it's pretty important, I think, when you think about how the world has changed in the last 50 years, especially when you look at some of the flows to developing countries, or as some prefer to call them, “emerging economies”, where direct foreign investment plays such an important role now. There are also remittances and philanthropy too. And of course trade flows are a longer-term way that these countries can emerge out of poverty and address some of the social issues.

Mr. Breen, you talked about some private sector partners that Cuso has. By the way, I was quite surprised when you mentioned that the average age of your Cuso volunteers was in the 40s, because I always think of Cuso as university service overseas of university students, but clearly the model has changed.

Can you describe some examples where your organization might have worked with some in the private sector, some Canadian foreign investors? In many countries.... By the way, Canadian companies are the major foreign investor in Africa. I was with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Albania yesterday, and he talked about a company out of Calgary called Bankers Petroleum as the single biggest investor in that country, the single biggest taxpayer, the single biggest exporter, leading to opportunities for young people and all kinds of people. If they worked with an organization like Cuso, for example, they could address some of the issues of youth engagement that you talked about.

[Kieran Breen]

We attempt to build corporate partnerships. Scotiabank is an organization that we've worked with in the past. One aspect of that is their releasing their staff to volunteer in our programs. We find they bring different skill sets. So perhaps historically your classic Cuso volunteer would have been somebody with a community work background or perhaps a teacher or a doctor. But increasingly we're working on business development.

We're also looking at strengthening management systems. One of the things that the civil society groups, the governments, the local governments that we work with face is that quite often with information systems, somewhere between the idea and the delivery there's a breakdown in the ability to take an idea from a policy and make it happen. We have found that often our corporate people, say from Scotiabank, have that business mind, the skills around business planning, how to get your ideas out there. So coaching and mentoring people on planning, delivering, etc., is important. Scotiabank springs to mind.

We've also worked with people like Deloitte. One of the things a lot of the organizations we work with have is financial management. I think in the developing world, there's a whole heap of issues that come from people's inability to manage their money. Having really skilled professionals working with people, looking at financial systems, how best to manage your resources.... We get a lot of MBA-type business professionals coming out of our partners and doing a lot of work around planning, system strengthening, really helping people to run better and more efficient organizations. Often a lot of our partners, particularly in civil society, have a lot of good intentions, a lot of drive, but it's that ability to take your ideas and to deliver.... What we often find is that our private sector volunteers bring in some slightly harder skills about how to deliver, and I think that's worked pretty well.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

What about you, Mr. Stevenson? Do you have examples? There's the example of a Canadian company that's made an investment in another country, and as part of their mandate for some corporate social responsibility, historically they'll say they'll build a hospital or a road or some capital project. What about more of a youth-oriented program, and that real core issue of getting kids out of gangs? There's the example of El Salvador or countries like Honduras where the narco gangs have such a draw on young people. How can you work with some organizations who have some resources, but don't necessarily have the expertise, to build some youth-oriented programs? Do you have examples of that in your organization?

[David Stevenson]

I can't speak from experience of Canadian companies. I know that when I was with the department as a director general dealing with children and youth issues, we looked at opportunities in the mining sector and made some progress in the mining sector on these kinds of partnerships, which I'm sure you're aware of. That gives me optimism that progress can be made. I don't have experience with other Canadian private sector firms and investments. I think that the good work done in the mining sector in terms of corporate social responsibility, in terms of positive engagement from the development wing of the department in collaboration with the trade wing and engagement by the ambassadors, and in terms of helping encourage conditions at the workplace, in the mines, has all been relatively positive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier.

I'm going to ask a question of Mr. Stevenson. I had a chance to go to South Sudan a while ago. You had good experience—I think you said 18 years with the World Food Programme. I was with an organization trying to help the people mechanize their farming. They negotiated the land along the Nile, great land. They brought containers of seed, then they sourced local seed. They brought farm equipment and they sourced local equipment, and yet they still couldn't make it happen.

You guys are involved in agriculture, and you've had great experience in the World Food Programme. Talk to us a bit about the challenges countries have, whether it's through governance or experience or whatever. I ask because they had fertile land along the Nile River they had negotiated for through the government. They had the land and they had the local people who they were training, yet they were still not able to actually produce any food. There's been conflict, obviously, in South Sudan. I get that. And there have been tribal issues. Talk to us about maybe some success you've seen in some countries and the challenges that still need to be overcome in order to help small farmers or help them become mechanized farms, whatever those things are, based on your experience with the World Food Programme and what you're doing at the foundation.

[David Stevenson]

That's exactly what my first priority is with the foundation. I didn't say it in my opening remarks, but Howard announced in December, after I had been in Rwanda for three or four weeks, a $500 million initiative—quite significant—to help Rwanda over a two-to-ten year period on modernizing agricultural growth. It's about mechanized farming, season fertilizer, post-harvest infrastructure, and so on. Why did he do it? What were the conditions that we saw were in place that could make this work? One is that they're all small-scale farms. In fact, Rwanda has very small land holdings—less than half a hectare per person. But the government has a policy for consolidated farming and cooperative farming.

What supports it is that the government has now issued land tenure to all of the small-scale farmers, so they actually have a piece of paper that tells them exactly where their land is. It looks like a Google map, a computer printout. It's a picture, and it's registered that they own land. That's one of the biggest constraints to this kind of development in Africa, and no doubt in southern Sudan, the issue of land ownership.

Then there are all kinds of supply chain issues, which I suspect you confronted in southern Sudan, which just create barriers to this kind of growth, including importing equipment and the skills base to actually assemble and maintain the equipment, and on and on.

We're on this road in Rwanda. I'm quite convinced that the conditions are better in Rwanda than they are in southern Sudan, but that doesn't mean that this kind of lesson can't be helpful for southern Sudan. That's our hope that if we can get small-scale farming going and behaving a little bit like large-scale farms in terms of production and agricultural growth, and ensuring that the well-being of the small-scale farmer is always at the forefront in the initiative, we'll be able to transfer some of these lessons learned about good governance, about land tenure, and about assembly, maintenance, and supply chain, and that it can make it work.