Foreign Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2016

[The Chair (Hon. Robert Nault (Kenora, Lib.)), Liberal, Bob Nault]

Let's bring this meeting to order. I know we are running a little late, so I apologize to the witnesses for our late arrival. We had a few votes to go through.

I want to officially start this meeting, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the study of the Canadian government's countries of focus for bilateral development assistance.

Before us this afternoon we have from Save the Children Canada, Marlen Mondaca. We have from the Micronutrient Initiative, Mark Fryars; and from Plan International Canada Inc., Caroline Riseboro. Welcome to the committee.

We'll just go by order as I read them, so Marlen, you're going to start. I give the floor to you.

[Marlen Mondaca, Director, International Programs, Save the Children Canada]

Good afternoon everyone. I would like to thank the committee for inviting Save the Children to appear today.

My name is Marlen Mondaca, and I am the director of international programs at Save the Children. Save the Children is an organization that places children, boys and girls, and their rights at the centre of our actions. Children and their best interests are the central guiding principle of our work. Indeed, our founder Eglantyne Jebb was integral to the development of the 1923 declaration on children's rights that promoted the concept that children have individual rights. This declaration was adopted by the League of Nations in 1924 and then became the basis for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN in 1989.

Our history therefore as an organization working for and with children both on humanitarian and development programming, extends back almost 100 years and is guided by the principles of the convention. Given our history and long experience, I am therefore grateful for the opportunity to spend the next few minutes with you to share some of our thoughts as well as to put forward some key principles that can help inform the criteria that you set out when making decisions on the future of Canada's bilateral development assistance.

The first principle that I would like to put forward for your consideration is the importance of having our Canadian international assistance take a rights-based approach, putting people, especially girls and boys, at the centre of our investments and strategy. The global community has made progress over the last 25 years in moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to a more rights-based one, which strengthens local governance and empowers citizens, including children. If we are to succeed in our efforts to reach the 2030 sustainable development goals, we will have to ensure that international assistance and development reflect rights-based principles including universality, equity, participation, interdependence, interrelatedness, and accountability.

When thinking about girls and boys, we often only view them through the lens of protection. We are conscious of our roles as adults and as parents to protect and provide for them. Children, however, are not mini-people with mini-rights. Children, like adults, have full individual human rights that must be respected. Girls and boys have agency and can, as their personal development permits, communicate their needs, shape their communities and institutions, and be agents of change for their present and future.

Children and youth have a right to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, and they must play a pivotal role in developing and implementing solutions to the challenges they face. From our programming experience, we know that when children and youth's voices are heard and taken into account, there are tremendous benefits for all stakeholders. Institutions, including schools and local and national governments, become more inclusive and accountable, and children's sense of belonging in their community grows. Through their active engagement, girls and boys experience citizenship-building, and they are able to develop skills for creating peaceful, democratic solutions to the issues they face. We are therefore very pleased to see child and youth participation as a continuing development priority.

At the heart of the sustainable development goals, or the SDGs, as they are called, is the principle that no one is left behind and that no goal is met unless it is met for everyone. This is the second principle I would like to put forward for your consideration.

Although the millennium development goals helped us to make great strides, we were not able to meet all of our goals, in part because of inequality due to gender but also due to race, ethnicity, or geography, simply where you live.

Let me first tackle gender inequality. Girls are still too often denied a voice in the decisions at household, community, and national levels. While progress has been made, gender inequality still permeates all aspects of societies and is a root cause of many barriers to sustainable development around the world.

Save the Children believes that it is critical to identify and work to transform the root causes of gender inequality. This requires addressing social norms and institutions that reinforce gender inequity.

Working with women, men, girls and boys, community and religious leaders, as well as advocating for and fostering legislation and policies that promote gender equality, is central to the work of addressing gender inequality.

Tackling gender alone is not sufficient. Race, ethnicity and geography must also be considered. We know, for example, that two-thirds of families who experience health, nutrition, and education poverty, in low and lower-middle income countries, are headed by a person from a racial or ethnic minority group.

Save the Children has in fact recently released new research that shows that inequities in life chances among excluded racial and ethnic groups are worsening in the majority of countries for which data is available. As an example, indigenous groups make up 5% of the global population, but 15% of people living in poverty globally.

In Peru, a middle-income country, indigenous Quechua children have life chances equivalent to the average for girls and boys in Gambia, one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, a Quechua child is 1.6 times more likely to die before their fifth birthday, and more than twice as likely to be stunted, as are children from a Spanish-speaking background.

The third principle that I would like to propose for your consideration is that Canada's approach must ensure we focus on the most excluded girls and boys wherever they live. When speaking of fragility in the context of international development, we must acknowledge that it is neither static, nor is it defined by borders. Fragility is dynamic. Stable states can become fragile due to conflict or climate crisis. In stable states, there are fragile communities because of structural inequality, most often based on race, ethnicity, gender or geographic remoteness.

While a focus on least developed and fragile states is necessary, Canada's development assistance strategy must also be able to address poor and marginalized populations within countries, and fragile contexts within states. This will ensure Canada meets its primary development objectives and those of the sustainable development goals.

As previous presenters to this committee have undoubtedly outlined, and as members of this committee know, the geography of poverty has shifted. Poverty is pervasive not just in low-income countries, but also in middle-income countries. According to the World Bank, more than 70% of the world's poor now live in countries that are middle-income. Thus, to reduce poverty and inequality in the world, and help the poorest and most vulnerable, in line with Minister Bibeau's mandate, our efforts must now focus not only on poor countries, as units of dedicated development intervention, but on people who are marginalized and living in poverty, regardless of where they live.

This important shift in analysis would see us focusing on where the poorest and most marginalized are, and ensuring that our international development approach is fit for purpose. It must have flexibility in design, and mechanisms to reach the very people who are most in need and ensure they are not left behind. Sound development must be based on need.

There is no question that fragile states and least-developed countries should receive the majority of Canada's development assistance, but it should also be noted that in 2013 the OECD reported that almost half of all fragile states were middle income. Flexibility will be important for Canadian development assistance to have the most impact.

Finally, in closing I would like to end with a quote from our founder Eglantyne Jebb, who said, “Humanity owes the child the best it has to give.”

The Canadian Government has an opportunity through this consultation process to invest in development programming that places children and youth, especially the most marginalized, at the centre of its interventions, both as key actors and as an affected group. It also has an opportunity to understand that children and youth's lives, and the issues that affect them, must be understood as multidimensional.

Children living in poverty rarely experience stand-alone deprivation. Poor health and nutrition, poor quality educational opportunities, early marriage, and few work opportunities, usually go hand in hand. Therefore, while funding streams and projects can be siloed and focused on specific thematic areas, the deprivations experienced by girls and boys are overlapping and reinforcing.

Integrated programming that seeks to address multiple areas of deprivation can lead to stronger sustainable results in programming. Therefore, we recommend that Canada continue to develop greater flexibility in funding mechanisms for programs that are designed to address the multiple and unique deprivations that girls and boys face.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mrs. Mondaca.

Mr. Fryars, it's your turn now, please.

[Mark Fryars, Vice-President, Program and Technical Services, Micronutrient Initiative]

Thank you and good afternoon. My name is Mark Fryars. I'm the vice-president of programs and technical services with the Micronutrient Initiative. Thank you very much for the opportunity to meet with you today.

The Micronutrient Initiative is committed to tackling one of the most pressing issues of our time, malnutrition, and particularly the lack of essential vitamins and minerals known as micronutrients. We are an international not-for-profit organization with a global reach, but headquartered here in Canada. For almost 25 years the Micronutrient Initiative has delivered high-impact programs and new approaches to help accelerate the scale-up of better nutrition globally.

Our mission is to ensure that the world's most vulnerable people, and especially women and children in developing countries, get access to the nutrition they need to survive and thrive. We help countries design, deliver, and measure integrated, innovative, and long-lasting solutions to correct nutritional deficiencies.

Thanks to investments from Canada and other generous donors, we've managed to improve the nutrition of about 500 million people each year in more than 70 countries. Canada's contribution to our vitamin A program alone has helped save an estimated four million children's lives worldwide since 1998.

We feel this is a great example of Canada's official development assistance fulfilling its mandate in making a real impact. Today I'd like to talk about the importance of Canada's impact in terms of where Canada works and what Canada does.

To begin with, I want to make five points about geographic focus for you to consider.

First, let me stress the importance of focusing for impact. The Micronutrient Initiative has been able to achieve significant impact for Canada and Canadians by focusing our efforts. To maximize the impact that Canada can have, our view is that Canada's official development assistance must likewise be focused, whether we're talking about thematic areas or countries of focus.

Second is that poverty is not confined to the poorest countries. I think you've just heard that. Global malnutrition and poverty are very complex. We know that some of the poorest, most vulnerable, and malnourished are not just in the poorest countries but also in lower- and middle-income countries. They all need assistance.

Third, reaching the vulnerable is absolutely essential. Another consideration for Canada is where and how to achieve the most impact for the most vulnerable people and especially women and girls. Canada already responds well to calls for international humanitarian assistance wherever it's needed. But development assistance is also important for reducing vulnerability. Canada currently focuses on a fairly well-balanced mix of fragile states and least developed countries as well as low- and lower-middle income countries. But within those countries, it's a focus on reducing vulnerability that is important.

Fourth, I'd like to suggest that you invest for the long term to realize real gains. As Canada reconsiders its countries of focus, our own experience is that stable, predictable investment over many years is critical to achieving long-term impact. It allows the scaling back of investment once local systems have been established and are working well.

However, in doing so, fifth, I would say that you should maintain flexibility in your funding modalities, because it must be recognized that operating conditions in any given country can change from time to time. The modalities of Canada's investments may, therefore, need adjusting in line with this. Our conclusion is that return on investment for Canadians is best secured where Canada stays the course and can influence change for the better over the long term.

Nonetheless, impact is not simply about the countries that Canada focuses on; it's more often about the issues that Canada focuses on. Canada is well positioned to lead on some key issues that deliver significant impact globally by acting on them on a multilateral basis, as informed, complemented, and reinforced by a portfolio of bilateral country investments.

One such critical area of focus for Canada is malnutrition. You may be surprised to know that Canada is a leader in global nutrition. We have a track record that we can be proud of. Along with the U.K., the U.S., and Japan, Canada is one of the world's largest donors to nutrition. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada is the second largest donor to nutrition and contributes the largest proportion of development assistance of any institutional donor at 4.8%.

Canada is also among the few countries that brings considerable knowledge and technical expertise to the challenge of global nutrition. It has raised international awareness and invested in action on nutrition. Canada supports critical nutrition programs that reduce child mortality and improve maternal and newborn health and child survival.

As a country, we could build on this strength with a strategic area of focus on nutrition for women and girls in particular as a core element of Canada's international development assistance. However, in the recently released international development assistance review discussion document, malnutrition is barely referenced as a critical area of focus. That's unfortunate. I hope that this will change because the stakes are high.

Let me give you six reasons for that.

First of all, malnutrition kills. Almost half of the deaths of children under five years of age are nutrition-related. The biggest contributor to the global disease burden is malnutrition.

Secondly, malnutrition is one of the most persistent barriers to improved human development. A child who gets good nutrition before turning two years of age completes at least four more grades of school and is 33% more likely to escape poverty as an adult than one who doesn't.

Thirdly, malnutrition is both a symptom and a cause of gender inequality. It's unacceptable that we live in a world where one billion women and girls are held back by malnutrition. Malnutrition categorically limits the capacity of women and girls to grow, learn, earn, and lead. Gender discrimination too often relegates women to the lowest rungs of the economic and social ladder. Making matters worse, in some countries women and girls eat last and eat least. I've seen this in Bangladesh, for example, where it's not uncommon for women to spend a long time preparing food for men to eat first, but if there isn't enough food, they and sometimes the children simply miss out.

Fourth, malnutrition costs the global economy $3.5 trillion U.S. a year. Nutrition is one of the most cost-effective investments for a healthier, more productive, and more equitable world. Studies have shown that every dollar invested in nutrition yields $16 in return. That's a pretty good return on investment.

Fifth, good nutrition for women and girls is essential to achieving most of the sustainable development goals. From global poverty and gender equality to health, education, economic growth and climate change, nutrition has a role to play.

Finally, better-nourished people are more resilient to shocks, including the effects of climate change.

The good news is that malnutrition is both preventable and treatable but it requires global leadership. It requires leadership to make nutrition a top development priority, as it's essential to achieving the global sustainable development goals by 2030; leadership to ensure that action to improve women and girls' nutrition particularly is scaled up by governments, donors, international agencies, civil society, and the private sector; and leadership to drive change at a global scale

In conclusion, Canada can build on its leadership in global nutrition by championing nutrition for women and girls in particular, by sustaining its global commitment to financing for global nutrition, and by encouraging global initiatives to scale up nutrition for women and girls by governments, donors, international agencies, civil society organizations, and the private sector.

As Canada redefines its role on the global stage, we can leverage our strengths and influence with a strategic focus on ending malnutrition at both the country level and in multilateral fora, like the G-7, the Francophonie, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings, and at the World Health Assembly. Canada's strategic leadership on nutrition for women and girls can make a tremendous difference in the world.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fryars.

Now we'll go to Plan International Canada and Ms. Riseboro please.

[Caroline Riseboro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Plan International Canada Inc.]

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Caroline Riseboro, and I'm the president and CEO of Plan International Canada.

Honourable members of the standing committee, thank you for inviting us to testify today on Canada's countries of focus for bilateral development assistance, an important matter to examine to maximize Canada's impact on global poverty reduction.

Founded in 1937, Plan International is one of the oldest and largest children's development organizations in the world. We work in over 70 countries worldwide to create lasting change for girls and boys in their communities. Everything we do is based on our firm commitment to child rights, and over the years Plan International has become a global leader in gender equality by working to implement gender-transformative programs that target the root causes of inequality. In fact, Plan International is one of the largest INGOs focused on girls' rights in the world.

Our Because I am a Girl campaign that started in 2012 has reached five million girls around the world, and our ambition in the 2030 sustainable development era is to create a world that values girls and women, promotes their rights, and ends injustice. To do this, Plan International, through its Because I am a Girl campaign, is driving a global movement that will transform power relations so that girls can thrive everywhere.

Today's world is ever-changing, mired in complex conflicts, protracted crises, environmental strains, and unrelenting migration. Borders have become more fluid, and with unprecedented levels of displacement, there is no end in sight.

According to UNHCR, there are 60 million people currently who are forcibly displaced worldwide, many of whom are vulnerable women and girls. An entire stateless generation of children born to migrants are unregistered and at risk of long-term exposure to neglect, violence, and exploitation. Fragility such as the current droughts in East Africa last for decades, no longer just years.

The selection process for prioritizing geographic focus must take into consideration the changing, complex circumstances and the pressing needs of the most vulnerable people around the globe, and leave no one behind, as agreed upon by nations of the world in establishing the SDGs.

We believe Canadian development assistance must target these challenges to create opportunities for people living with the lasting impact. In our view, the selection of geographic priorities should be about conditions, opportunities, and the ability to demonstrate the impact for Canadian aid among the most vulnerable populations.

In an effort to focus Canada's bilateral development assistance, I would like to share a list of four key considerations with you that address the complexities of the global context, build upon Canada's existing strengths and comparative advantages, leverage evidence of what has worked, and allow for deeper impact and influence, particularly on the poorest and most marginalized, like girls and women.

The key considerations are as follows.

First is marginalization and vulnerability. As we know, Canada's development assistance is compliant with the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act. A fundamental principle of this act is combatting poverty. We agree with our counterparts that regardless of the status of a country—whether it's least developed, lower middle income, or middle income—we need to support the poorest and most marginalized and underserved populations.

The evidence is indisputable. Adolescent girls remain the most vulnerable population on the earth. This includes adolescent girls who are out of school, unaccompanied minors, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, refugees, and IDPs, as well as populations affected by climate change.

With the massive youth bulge in many developing countries, there are also opportunities to create jobs and look for opportunities for economic development, including the creation of green jobs. In selecting geographic priorities, we also need to consider those who were left behind in the MDG era. In fact, the MDG era mainly focused on those who were relatively better off, and with the SDGs we have an opportunity to focus now on the most vulnerable.

The second consideration is gender equality. As some of my counterparts have pointed out to the committee, Canada has also had tremendous success in advancing gender equality, which we know is essential to reducing poverty. Evidence has demonstrated that intergenerational cycles of poverty can be broken by educating girls. Empowered girls will lift their families, communities, and nations out of poverty.

We must reach girls who are out of school or in unsafe and non-girl-friendly schools; who lack basic rights to water and sanitation; who lack access to comprehensive sexual health, reproductive health, and health services in general; who are at risk of early, forced, and child marriage; and who are in situations of neglect or exploitation and especially vulnerable in conflict or emergency situations.

It's also not lost on any of us today, I think, that I'm speaking mainly to a committee of men, so I also would suggest that we need to reach boys and men and engage them in the critical issues around human rights, equality, and masculinities that support gender equality.

When selecting countries, regions, or sub-regions for bilateral development assistance or, for that matter, any development assistance, Canada must consider the willingness and ability to promote and advance the intrinsic rights of women and girls and the protection of the most vulnerable, which continues to be the adolescent girls.

The third is fragility. We welcome the minister's call for Canada's aid to respond to the needs of a new global context, which means that we must overcome the obstacles and seize the opportunities. This means that the selection of geographic priorities for bilateral assistance must respond to the increasing fragility of countries and entire regions.

The fourth is a regional and sub-regional approach. Countries in a region or sub-region face similar challenges and can benefit from regional and sub-regional approaches and investment. It allows the countries to learn from each other and helps to deepen Canada's aid impact and regional influence. In our view, there's an opportunity that can be seized when considering geographic focus. For instance, there are many similarities to the issues linked to high rates of child marriage in southern and east Africa. As such, having a sub-regional program to end child marriage can be a highly effective and efficient way of delivering aid that is cost-effective and produces high impact.

In addition to these four considerations, we would also recommend to the committee that there are three other determinants of success.

The first determinant is flexibility. When the vast majority of funds available is channelled to countries of focus, our hands are often tied in being able to respond to the needs of people impacted by unpredictable circumstances. This is especially true with respect to the current crisis of displaced people who are highly vulnerable but not staying permanently in one country.

The second determinant is innovations that can be taken to scale. We must innovate and scale up evidence-based programs through strategic partnerships. We know that ODA is simply not enough to reach the ambitions of the SDGs. In line with SDG-17, we must not be wary in finding win-win solutions to crowd in critical non-ODA from private sector and other key partners to leverage ODA. We also need to constantly have a view to innovate in terms of finding better ways to do our work, and to scale up programs in the field based on local solutions, in order to effectively respond to challenges such as climate change. This includes harnessing cutting-edge technology in our work on the ground and tracking our results. Innovations that have proven to be effective through evidence must be taken to scale if we wish to reach the ambitions of the SDGs.

This takes me to the third determinant. In prioritizing the geographic focus, we must focus on monitoring, evaluation, and research to track aid investment, learn from past programming, build evidence for proven models, and make Canada's investment count on the global stage. This will also enable Canada to create thought leadership and develop niche expertise and specific topics in geographic areas. This evidence is also crucial to carry out effective advocacy and, more importantly, to communicate with Canadians about the development issues they care about.

During last month's Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen, I was able to attend a launch on behalf of Plan International, whereby we have partnered with KPMG and the Gates foundation to develop an SDG tracker focusing specifically on women and girls, again continuing to build monitoring, evaluation, and evidence.

To summarize, there are four key considerations: vulnerability and marginalization, gender equality, fragility, and regional and sub-regional approaches with critical determinants of success, as I mentioned earlier.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the time in front of the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Ms. Riseboro.

Now we'll go straight to questions with Mr. Allison.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to split my time with Mr. Clement.

Mr. Fryars, in terms of vitamin A, you talked about high impact. What exactly is the cost of a treatment for vitamin A for the individuals you're treating in the field, and how often does it need to happen?

[Mark Fryars]

For vitamin A for children, which is a preventive measure as well as a treatment measure, the product cost is around 5¢ per child per year, so that part is extremely cost-effective. The delivery cost ranges according to the conditions. The more distant the population, the higher the cost, but it ranges from 25¢ to 50¢ and sometimes up to about $1 per child per year. It's very cost-effective all around and is usually integrated with other services to get cost efficiencies.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

That's good.

You mentioned that you guys are one of the leading purveyors of micronutrient nutrition. In terms of the provision of vitamin A, where do you guys rank in the world? Do you do a large percentage of the world's needs, then? Where are you at for that?

[Mark Fryars]

For vitamin A supplementation, we provide something like 90% of the world's needs for that particular age group, the under-five preschool children.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

That's great. It's a very high impact for a Canadian NGO located right here in Ottawa.

[Mark Fryars]

Yes.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

I have one other question before I turn it over. You talked about partnerships with countries. What's your thought process in terms of being able to scale back and have the country step up? Does that happen?

I realize that you're dealing with the poorest and the most vulnerable countries. Is there a point in time when you're able to pass the baton to those countries? How does that happen? What's the criteria for that?

[Mark Fryars]

Yes, I have actually seen it with a couple. I've been with the Micronutrient Initiative now for 13 or so years, and I've seen it happen in a couple of cases. The first was in Nicaragua, where we had investments early on in the nineties. They managed to build surveillance systems for nutrition and also the response mechanisms needed for malnutrition. They're now still implementing them, without any support from us, the American government, or any of the other donors. That's a good one.

Recently, in spite of the earthquake, we've seen Nepal do pretty well. They've brought down a lot of the child mortality rates and some of the other key indicators. We've decided that we no longer need to be there at the same level, so we've withdrawn a level of support, because we can see now that they actually are managing things pretty well on their own. It doesn't happen quickly, but it can happen.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Do you get funding from USAID or the DFID or any of these other places to help enact programs? Or is it mostly from the Canadian government?

[Mark Fryars]

We have funding from the Department for International Development in the U.K. and from Irish Aid. We've had it from the Gates foundation, other private foundations, the Irish government, and range of others—

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Because they recognize you guys as excellent in what you do.

[Mark Fryars]

—in addition to Canada. Thank you.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Clement.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Perhaps I could have a discussion with Ms. Riseboro.

According to stats I've seen, from 1990 to 2015, the number of people lifted out of poverty has been close to one billion, 650 million in China and India. Of those, 900 million went all the way to the middle class: they were poor in 1990 and middle class by 2015. I want your point of view on that.

To me, it makes sense, then, to keep doing the things that gave us that success, that created that success. Wouldn't we want to do the things that have worked in the past to erase poverty for one billion people in one generation? Maybe I'm not seeing the picture the way you do, but maybe you could comment on that.

[Caroline Riseboro]

I think the research and evidence have shown that while it's true that millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, there still remain a number of very vulnerable groups. I think that if there were ever a critique of the MDGs, it would be that they helped those who were relatively better off move to the middle class.

What they did, though, was to leave significant pockets of vulnerability, and that includes adolescent girls, ethnic minorities, and children. In fact, millions of women are still excluded from the economy, so I don't think we can just take the approach we've previously taken. In fact, under the SDG framework, our goal is to leave no one behind. This will mean that we can no longer do business as usual. We have to focus on some of the most vulnerable groups, which will require different approaches.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

If we have a billion more people, most of whom are in the middle class, in these countries, presumably we as well want to help them help those who have not yet been lifted up. It's not just our burden. It's actually the burden of people in the host countries.

It strikes me that there are things that can help them create transparency and accountability within their own governance structures, such as a crackdown on tax evasion, for instance, to make sure that if there are hidden assets of the people who are preying on the system, those assets are released. Another example is trade policy that promotes trade with countries that have a textile industry. There are these kinds of things. Would you agree that they might be helpful as well?

[Caroline Riseboro]

I think I would go back to what the evidence says. The evidence says there remain extremely vulnerable groups, which continue to be women and girls. As a consequence, some of the most effective investments would be things like ensuring that girls have a right to education. Currently, almost 65 million girls are still not allowed to go to school. Many of them—15 million a year—are married off because of poverty and are forced into early and childhood marriages. This issue will not be addressed just through things like cracking down on tax evasion, quite honestly. I think it's important that Canada continue to invest in those areas, especially since we've committed to be part of the SDGs, and the SDGs say that we should leave no one behind and that we should focus on the most vulnerable groups. The research is very clear. Adolescent girls remain the most vulnerable group on the face of the earth. It was Kofi Annan who said that the research is indisputable that if we can give girls access to education, that is the most powerful investment we can make to ensure that we break the cycle of poverty.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Sidhu, go ahead, please.