I'll speak to the simplification, first of all. Something that we consistently see in the second and third iterations of national action plans around the world is a reduction in the number of indicators. Canada was in a rare position, along with only a few other countries at the time it announced its national action plan, of also having a monitoring and evaluation framework. It just wasn't a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework.
For example, we've worked with Bosnia over the last several years. Their original plan had some 250-plus indicators. The revised version had between 50 and 75. That's the type of scale of reduction that I suggest.
Again, it's not to oversimplify or to say that complexity doesn't factor into it. But as I'm sure you've all done in trying to digest the progress reports, even in the very helpful civil society shadow reports, it's really difficult to see progress over time, to understand what's really a priority in there, to understand what the target is. Are we making incremental change but still not getting anywhere close to where we need to be?
Simplifying, simplifying, simplifying the number of indicators in the reporting makes everybody happier, because our diplomats, our civil servants, aren't spending all their time reporting and not actually implementing the agenda. I think that will actually help this committee and other organizations or other bodies make better decisions.
Your second point was related to core funding. It's just something that I think is essential to organizations, both in Canada and around the world. Part of the way our governments work, and governments around the world need to work, is through a relationship between civil society and government. It's when civil society has the ability to meet....
As Sarah was saying, sometimes even just meeting is a challenge. Money for gas is a challenge for many of the women in the countries that we work with. It's not like they're asking for an exorbitant salary or to be spending money in fancy hotels and capitals around the world. They're talking about money to rent a room and maybe have coffee or tea for some type of consultation, to have staff who can actually track a government's progress.
It will be these civil society organizations that hold our partners and our allies and those who are not our allies accountable, and really push for change within. I think perhaps the single most important value of having a national action plan is that it gives civil society a tool to holds its government accountable, as opposed to a government just saying, “Yes, this is a priority for us, and we'll take action”, especially in countries where processes are far more opaque.
Having well-funded and well-resourced civil society organizations, paired with national plans that lay out clear priorities, really enables that process, which is so fundamental to the democracy we're all pursuing.