Evidence of meeting #61 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Justin Forsyth  Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and UN Assistant Secretary-General, As an Individual
Dominique Isabelle Hyde  Deputy Director, UNICEF

10:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bob Nault

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Kent, please.

May 11th, 2017 / 10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON

I have a question that is potentially a big one, but I'd just like to get your general thoughts on the topic.

Let me say, first of all, that I think UNICEF is a shining exception to the the UN agencies that have not managed to contemporize and evolve to face very different, changing challenges.

You mentioned earlier the new secretary-general's commitment to reform systems and approaches. Whenever we get into this topic, I think of Anthony Banbury's essay last year in which he talked about the UN generally as “a Remington typewriter in a smartphone world.”

The word “sovereignty” seems to be a problem in addressing contemporary humanitarian challenges. Sovereign states are supposed to be responsible for dealing with agencies like you, the UNHCR, or UNRRA in the West Bank, Gaza, and South Sudan, but very often the sovereign state has no interest in providing or enabling humanitarian support. Iraq, for example, is not taking responsibility for internally displaced people in the Kurdish autonomous region. The Kurdish autonomous region doesn't have the capacity to do it. UNHCR has a very narrow focus on what a certified refugee is. We see the same IDP problem in South Sudan and other places.

What are your thoughts? I don't want to draw you into an indiscreet discussion, but what are your thoughts about reforming the UN from the top down? You mentioned that peacekeeping is simply not working appropriately in Africa these days. How should we do that? There are so many countries at the UN who are entrenched with thoughts about process that have nothing to do with reforming, contemporizing, and instructively updating.

10:45 a.m.

Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and UN Assistant Secretary-General, As an Individual

Justin Forsyth

I suspect you have a better answer to the question than I do.

Again, it's not necessarily just like UNICEF, but the UN is as strong or weak as its members. Many of the things you refer to affect the Security Council. If the Security Council violently disagrees, as it does on Syria or other conflicts, it's very hard for UN agencies, or any bit of the UN, to do more than pick up the pieces, or as I said earlier, stick plasters on the wound. We have to be realistic about that. It's not in our power. It's more in your power and the governments of the world to sort out the Security Council and to try to reach consensus. I think that's where leadership does come in. As you know, a lot of people in the world are looking to Canada as a country at the moment. In these uncertain times, you have an opportunity as you've had in the past—and you've cited many of the examples from the past. It isn't a new role for Canada to kind of lead from the front on this in international politics. That's your role as parliamentarians, but also the government's role. There are few governments in the world that want to do that.

In terms of wider UN reform, I think the secretary-general is very keen to sort out the bureaucracy and inefficiencies. Part of the UN that does need modernizing and sorting out.... On joining the UN, some of it shocked me. It's partly that there are many historical factors involved in this. It's also that many of our boards are governments and are also pressing for things that aren't very efficient in terms of making staff move around and how budgeting is done. There needs to be a lot of reform on that. I think we can also collaborate even better than we're doing.

I think there's a bit of a hidden success story here. For example, UNICEF with the WFP, UNHCR, UNFPA, and whether it's on FGM, early marriage, or humanitarian efforts, we're doing enormous programs together. With the WHO and UNDP, and with an enormous amount of World Bank funding behind us, we're running a new program in Yemen with hundreds of millions of dollars for child health and nutrition. We need more of that. We need to look at how we leave bigger results and change.

All I would say, as a relative newcomer to the UN, is that I think the UN is at its worst when it's not clear about what it's trying to achieve. I know that's an obvious statement, but if we're clear that we want to wipe out some of these neglected diseases or polio, or we want to get all the girls in the world into school, whether it's at a country level or a global level, I think then you get people rallying and bringing their different energies to make that happen. If we endlessly just discuss—as it feels sometimes in New York—process, then everyone just goes in circles. A lot of the discussion in New York is about process. I don't understand half of the jargon and I'm sure you wouldn't either. I think that's not just a UN problem. Member states contribute to making that discussion bad as well, by endlessly focusing on process, rather than big things to change. I know that's an obvious statement, but that would be my insight.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bob Nault

Colleagues, I think that wraps up our time.

I want to thank Mr. Forsyth and Ms. Hyde for coming to brief us on UNICEF.

Some of the members here might not be old enough to know, but UNICEF was a big deal at Halloween in my time. You never went out for Halloween when I was kid without a UNICEF box. If you did, then you just weren't with it because that was so important at school. UNICEF has been around a long time and it has made a big difference in the world. We're very supportive of it, of course. As Mr. Kent says, we're trying to get our head around how the UN itself can move forward in a very dynamic and changing world that's sometimes not so nice. Canada hopes to play a big part in that.

Again, Mr. Forsyth, thank you very much. It was a very enjoyable and informative hour.

Colleagues, before I adjourn, this is just a reminder that we're meeting Central Asian ambassadors and MPs for lunch on Wednesday, May 17. Don't forget that you've been invited.

I want to remind everyone that we're working in two tracks here. We're going to start the development finance initiative study, perhaps as early as next week. We're going to try to run on both tracks because we want to get moving some of the initiatives that we've committed to. As for when that might start, we'll have that to you in some fashion in writing in the next day or so.

This has been a very good and productive meeting this morning. Thank you very much. We'll see you next week.

The meeting is adjourned.