Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, committee members.
My name is Arjan de Haan and I am the director of the Inclusive Economies program, which includes the Governance and Justice program, at the International Development Research Centre.
We are honoured to appear before the foreign affairs committee today, as we did in 2007, to provide testimony for an updated democratic development study.
IDRC is a Crown corporation that plays a key role in Canada's foreign affairs and international development efforts. Our approach to democratic development is based on the belief that researchers and policy-makers should be empowered to address the barriers to democracy in their own country with tools and solutions rooted in local realities.
An ongoing illustration of this approach is an initiative with Global Affairs called Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar. This supports democratic transition through policy research. The intent is to nurture a new generation of state and non-state actors who will engage in open public debate, generate sound research to support evidence-based decision-making and encourage the voices of women and other vulnerable groups in government.
Besides the initiative in Myanmar, I'd like to share three examples that demonstrate how IDRC supports research that bolsters the building blocks for democracy. The first example is how reliable sources of information contribute to democratic processes. Fake news and misinformation are alarmingly commonplace around the world. Just last week, in anticipation of this year's election here, Canada announced $7 million for literacy programming to improve Canadians' ability to critically analyze online news and reporting.
Rumours of false information can be dangerous. They prevent people from making informed decisions; they stoke hostilities and generate suspicion; and at their worst they cause violence and conflict. For example, in southeast Kenya in 2012, false rumours about clashes or imminent attacks fuelled violent conflicts between two ethnic groups. As many as 170 people were killed and 40,000 people were displaced.
IDRC teamed up with a Toronto-based NGO called The Sentinel Project to determine how these rumours were being spread and how they could be eliminated. The lack of reliable information in the region was primarily to blame. In response, a mobile phone app called Una Hakika was launched to help restore peace. It's a simple concept. When a worrying rumour is making the rounds, subscribers report it to the service for verification. Community volunteers and local police investigate the rumour and report back via text message, voice calls and Facebook. In only two years, an estimated 45,000 people were regularly using the free daily service for accurate information. Word spread, and in 2017 Una Hakika services were used to reduce tensions during Kenya's general and presidential elections.
Today, this crucial service is reaching an additional 250,000 people in Kenya, and it's also being scaled to a similar extent in Myanmar where a sister project is dispelling anti-Muslim rumours. Its popularity continues to grow, and now our partners will be adapting the service to local contexts in seven countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
The second example I'd like to share is about encouraging women's voices in government. Even though women's perspectives are crucial in the development of truly democratic societies and governments, they still aren't being appropriately represented. In parliaments worldwide, women's participation has been stagnant at only 24%. The international group called the Open Government Partnership promotes accountable and responsive government, yet even among their 3,000 commitments, women were the focus of only 1%.
This is why IDRC is supporting the new feminist open government initiative. It builds on these existing commitments to help women raise their voices in government. It will support research that investigates the social and cultural factors that limit women's political involvement, and it will identify solutions to increase their participation. The goal of the feminist open government initiative is to ensure that by the end of 2019, 30% of the 79 member countries will take concrete actions, policies and practices to raise the level of women's political participation.
The third example I'd like to share is how improving crucial services can help to stabilize the lives of refugees and the host countries that welcome them. Stability is key to developing democracy, of course, but with more than 68 million people on the move worldwide, it is difficult to achieve. Of these people, 25 million have had to flee their country and are considered refugees. Developing countries host 85% of internationally displaced people, but they have limited capacity to support and integrate them. The social and economic burden of this is heavy. Citizens often perceive new arrivals as a threat to their well-being. This stokes tensions and breeds populist movements that can destabilize countries and indeed entire regions.
In Lebanon, a country that itself had to rebuild after the war, one in six people is a refugee. There, IDRC supports research to develop an understanding of how to make the best use of precious limited resources in health care and other services. Poor-quality health data makes it difficult for decision-makers to accurately assess needs and provide services. For example, refugees often have distinct mental health needs.
The research we support is identifying where resources are needed most and how to use them in the most efficient, effective and equitable way. This support helps to ease the health care burden and stabilize the situation in Lebanon while improving care and services for the refugees who desperately need this.
In conclusion, IDRC thinks about research as a long-term investment that builds evidence and promotes informed decisions. It also identifies opportunities to create societies that are supportive of equality, equity, diversity and prosperity. IDRC believes that this can be achieved, as I hope I have illustrated, by providing reliable sources of information to contribute to democratic processes, to encourage women's voices in government and to address the factors that could destabilize already vulnerable states.
As I hope our testimony illustrates, multisectoral research can help to promote democratic development. Our approach focuses on supporting the building blocks for democracy by equipping local researchers and policy-makers with research data and tools to generate the evidence that can help build prosperous and democratic societies. We think that research, with the right care, can help to usher in a new era of hope and change.
In closing, I'd like to sincerely thank the committee for having invited the IDRC to testify on this key study.
I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have on our work and to provide further information to your offices.