Bon après-midi tout le monde.
Honourable members of the standing committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
My name is Christina Polzot, and I'll be testifying in conjunction with my colleague Kelly Bowden.
Oxfam is part of a global confederation and movement for change working in more than 90 countries to mobilize the power of people against poverty. Our mission is to build lasting solutions to poverty and injustice with the focus on overcoming inequality and improving the lives and promoting the rights of women and girls. Oxfam's origins date back to the mid-1940s when our organization was formed to support struggling women and girls during World War II. Since our origins, the geography of poverty and inequality has significantly shifted, and our modern day organization faces new challenges that require flexible and mixed approaches to build a just world without poverty. Therefore, we welcome the Government of Canada's review of its international assistance framework and this committee's study on the countries of focus.
Oxfam is heartened to see the significant improvements in global poverty levels achieved over the last two decades, during which 660 million people have risen out of poverty, but we are also troubled by the significant growth and the divide between the rich and the poor that has happened over that same period, both within and across countries, and by the continued discrimination against women and girls, which remains a fundamental challenge to eliminating poverty.
Allow me to expand on these two critical issues—inequality and women's rights. According to a recent Oxfam report entitled “An Economy for the 1%”, most countries have higher inequality today than they did a few decades ago, and an estimated 73% of the world's poorest people now live in middle-income countries. Since the year 2000, the poorest half of the world's population has received just 1% of the total increase in global wealth while half of that increase has gone to the top 1%. Had inequality within countries not grown during that period, an extra 200 million people would have escaped poverty. Today's extreme economic, social, and political inequalities undermine growth and progress. Inequality keeps poor people poor and powerless, and weakens the capacity of economic growth to eradicate poverty. Inequality creates deep social problems and denies people dignity and voice. That in turn deepens social frustration and the likelihood of conflict. Unequal societies are more vulnerable to economic shocks as well as to the impacts of climate change. So despite the very clear link between poverty and inequality, development efforts have failed to address inequality.
Even in regions and countries where significant poverty reduction advances have been achieved, such as in Zambia, there remain significant populations living in pockets of extreme poverty. Despite this, Canada decided to end its bilateral assistance program to Zambia in 2013, and due to inequality, extreme poverty in Zambia has increased from 64% to 75%. One of the most serious and pervasive forms of inequality is discrimination against women and girls, which remains one of the most fundamental obstacles to the eradication of poverty.
According to the UNDP, the majority of the 1.2 billion people who live in extreme poverty today are women and girls. Women and girls do 60% of the world's work and produce half of the world's food, yet they earn only 10% of the world's income and own only 1% of the world's property. Women are most affected by the impacts of climate change, and violence against women has been identified as one of the key reasons why development is lacking.
These complex and interconnected trends around inequality and women's rights give rise to some clear implications for Canada's bilateral development assistance. It is not possible to effectively tackle poverty without also tackling inequality, particularly gender inequality. Therefore, addressing inequality should be a core objective of Canada's development efforts.
Herein lies the opportunity. Inequality should be the lens that guides where Canada focuses its bilateral development assistance.
Given that the world's poor and most vulnerable are found in diverse types of countries, particularly in ones where inequality is high, Canada should take a mixed approach and focus on a mixed portfolio of countries. In other words, Canada should focus on working with the poorest of the poor regardless of where they live, whether they are fragile states, least-developed and low-income countries, or middle-income countries.
Using inequality as the guiding framework, I'd like to speak specifically about three aspects of Canada's bilateral development assistance: first, the need to tailor our efforts to the different types of countries and contexts of operation; second, the importance of championing an overall thematic approach more than a country-based approach; and third, if the current countries-of-focus model is maintained, then there should better balance between the percentage of Canada's bilateral development assistance targeted toward those countries versus other countries.
Let me first address the issue of taking a mixed approach. Those who live in least-developed and low-income countries face distinct challenges and should be a focus of Canada's bilateral development assistance. In these countries, we should focus our approach on promoting social policies around health and education, with a particular focus on women and girls. Three-quarters of the world's poor now live in middle-income countries, where we need to adopt a broader range of development approaches, including a focus on civil society strengthening, protecting civil society space to hold governments to account, and the empowerment of women and marginalized groups, including youth.
We know that creating and implementing good public policy is crucial to closing the inequality gap. This is why ensuring a strong civil society in middle-income countries is so central to the inequality problems in those countries. Existing inequalities are worsened in conflict-afflicted countries and regions, where already marginalized people, particularly women and unemployed youth, are further marginalized. Inequality in fragile states and regions drives a lack of social cohesion, which in turn deepens social frustration and further increases conflict and social instability. Addressing inequality plays a key role in addressing the root causes of fragility and instability.
Given the vulnerability of people caught up in crises, and widespread evidence of sexual violence against women and girls in these contexts, Canada's humanitarian approach in fragile states and regions should focus on the protection of all people from serious human rights violations, particularly the protection of women's rights and of civil society space. This approach is consistent with the SDGs' commitment to “leave no one behind”, and with the objectives set out in Minister Bibeau's mandate letter.
Our second recommendation is that the Canadian government focus its bilateral development assistance around an overarching thematic approach rather than a country-based approach. Canada's global program on maternal, newborn, and child health has provided evidence of success when applying a thematic approach. Defining Canada's thematic priorities should be based on current and emerging needs, sectors most relevant to the SDGs, complementarity with other donors, and dialogue with partners in the regions and countries of engagement. Canada's overall sectors of focus should also reflect and draw on our core competencies within the development assistance program, should integrate a measure of longevity to ensure predictability of funding, and should mitigate frequent changes in focus that are disruptive to partners and to the communities with which we work.
Based on our current analysis, and the core historical competencies of Canada's development assistance, we suggest that its overarching thematic focus be on gender equality, with particular emphasis on promoting the rights of women and girls. Canada has shown great leadership on these issues in the past and has made significant contributions to country-level partners through the provision of technical expertise in country via gender advisers and through Canada's gender funds, which were a flexible and locally based funding mechanism for women's rights organizations overseas. These approaches, which are consistent with Canadian values, are a testament to our historical leadership on women's rights and gender equality.
Lastly, we recommend that if the countries-of-focus model is maintained, there be a reduction in the proportion of Canada's overall bilateral development assistance that is targeted toward those countries. There should be more flexibility in the system that allows for responsive and innovative programming.
This is especially important for Oxfam and other organizations, as Jim was explaining, that are committed to long-term partnerships and capacity-building of local civil society organizations as key agents in tackling inequality. This type of work requires flexible, stable, and long-term funding regardless of the country. As such, our recommendation would be that there be a greater percentage of funding earmarked for non-focus countries in support of local partner capacity-building and regional approaches that address shared challenges across borders.
In conclusion, Canada should focus its international development assistance and that focus should be on the poorest and most vulnerable, regardless of where they live. Different types of development approaches will be needed in different countries enhancing innovation, responsiveness, and collaboration. Canada has the opportunity to show leadership and demonstrate commitment to making inequality and women's rights as mission critical in rendering Canadian development assistance more effective.
This testimony would not be complete without stressing that agenda 2030 and the SDGs should be our guiding framework, as well as the spirit of the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act. As you can see, there are many opportunities, and I thank you for allowing me to share some of them with you today.
Thank you, and we look forward to your questions.