Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2020

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

You also used the word “flexible”. Is there a lack of flexibility in the funding that's being provided by the Government of Canada?

[Rachel Logel Carmichael]

I think that for NGOs like Save the Children, where we have not seen funding for civil society to date, having flexible, available and timely funding is quite important.

As I mentioned off the top, Save the Children has a response plan across the entire globe. We've reached over eight million children since the end of September in that response. As for our being able to access Government of Canada funding to support it, that's not been available to date. We'd like to see flexible and timely funding that would allow all of the different members of the humanitarian ecosystem—the UN, local organizations, as have already been spoken about, INGOs, pooled funds, and all of the different areas of that ecosystem—to have access to funds that might support these life-saving needs.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Morley, I wanted to talk to you about Covax—

[Annabelle Bodmer-Roy, Director, International Policy and Programs, UNICEF Canada]

Could I actually just jump in?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Just very briefly, because the time is almost up. Please, Ms. Bodmer-Roy.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Maybe while she's coming, I could ask my next question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

You're basically out of time, Mr. Morantz.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Oh, am I?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Unless it's a very quick comment or a reply from one of the witnesses, we'll have to go over to the next round.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

No problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Okay. Thank you so much.

The next eight and a half minutes go to Ms. Sahota. Please go ahead.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, just going off that and talking about flexible funding and why it's so important, I'm sorry to hear what Ms. Carmichael is saying.

I'll ask Mr. Morley something along those lines as well. You've highlighted that Canada's contributions to UNICEF's COVID-19 humanitarian response has been welcome, both in terms of the funding amount and the flexibility of how that funding is used. Could you provide more detail on how Canada has contributed and why this flexibility of funding is so important? What are the reasons we need that?

[David Morley]

Having flexibility of funding is really important because it allows the people in the field and closest to those humanitarian needs to make the decisions, so that it's not made far away, in capitals or wherever. I know that my colleague, Annie, can add more details to this than I can.

[Annabelle Bodmer-Roy]

Yes, the funding that Canada has provided to UNICEF's humanitarian response to COVID has actually been particularly flexible compared with that of other donors. Unfortunately, what we're seeing is that many humanitarian donors are increasingly tightly earmarking their funds; thus restricting where that funding goes within humanitarian response. Canada is actually one government that has demonstrated a very strong commitment to good donor humanitarian principles in that regard.

I will give you a couple of illustrations of where Canadian funding has made a difference and Canadian flexibility in funding has made a difference. I was looking, for example, to our team in Côte d'Ivoire, who were very proud to tell me that due to Canadian funding and the flexibility that was provided, the team in Côte d'Ivoire—when schools closed down because of a lockdown in that country—was able to reorient our education program and design and launch, in two weeks, the country's first-ever national education program delivered through radio. That's just one example.

In the Middle East, there was a top-up of funding for the Syrian refugee response, and that was also flexible. In fact, across the Middle East the flexibility of the funding allowed us, for example, in Jordan to respond to larger COVID outbreaks in equipping the Ministry of Health with 40 ventilators for both pediatric and adult use. And in Lebanon it helped with establishing a risk communications network across all Lebanese municipalities. That would be working directly with front-line workers, non-health service providers, health educators, and representatives of the private sector across the country, as well as youth groups to train them on how to prevent COVID and support their communities in how to mitigate risks. Those are just two examples.

This flexibility from Canada really allowed us to determine, at the global level, which countries were most in need of support when there were gaps geographically, but also where there were gaps thematically. For example, there are often life-saving areas that are considered more eligible for humanitarian assistance—often things like health and nutrition and water and sanitation. At times, areas like protection, as mentioned by Save the Children, and in particular gender-based violence, tend to be underfunded in humanitarian responses. Having flexibility of funding from a country like Canada allows us to target those areas that tend to be underfunded.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

To UNICEF as well—and either of you can answer—we also heard from some witnesses during the last meeting that humanitarians were having difficulty accessing those who need their assistance during the pandemic.

Could you please speak to your experience and let us know whether Canadian officials have offered any type of assistance with advocating for your teams to have this access to people in need?

[David Morley]

I know that right now with the refugees who have been fleeing Tigray, across into Sudan, we've been able to get access, but it's very hard because it's very remote. It takes a few days to be able to reach where some of our colleagues have been reaching. Then the measures we have to take once we're there, with social distancing and masks and all of that, make it harder.

I am not aware of what some of our officials close by have been doing to help or not to help, but I do know, as Annie mentioned, in general the responsiveness of the Canadian government is very much appreciated. We carry weight, as a country, that I think sometimes we don't realize because we always just look south of the border.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Right.

Yes, go ahead.

[Annabelle Bodmer-Roy]

Just to add to that, I know that our country offices are constantly in communication with the Canadian missions in the different countries. One of the areas that has been particularly appreciated is top-up funding.

When needs have increased in different areas, we've been able to access top-up funding through the missions. We're also using that flexibility to adapt our programming to be able to access people, whether by adapting the way we program or continuing to program in certain thematic areas or certain geographies.

I know, for example, that in Latin America, with support from Canada, we've been able to continue our vaccination campaign on polio, which has been able to ensure that children still have access to this form of protection from deadly disease. That flexibility and top-up funding, which has been the result of regular communication with and availability of the Canadian missions, has been deeply appreciated.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you for that.

I have a little less than three minutes left. I will pass them on to my colleague Mr. Fonseca.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Ruby, Mr. Chair, and our witnesses.

Mr. Morley, UNICEF talks about a six-point plan for coordination and prevention. Can you quickly run us through those six points and what they would do in avoiding this COVID-19 crisis?

[David Morley]

We're working on coordination because it's such an important thing for us to do in all of our work. All of our work, as UNICEF, is done together with partners, be they government or civil society.

We're working to coordinate through ministries of health to protect health workers and also to expand the testing that will have to happen to make it possible. We have to coordinate with ministries of health to safeguard the non-COVID-19 essential health services. Annie mentioned, for example, the polio vaccine campaigns. Those are some of the areas of coordination done together with ministries of health and with partners, be they global NGOs like Save the Children or the work that Dr. Al-Kassem and NGOs on the ground do. If we don't coordinate, we end up with chaos. Coordinating through health is a way to make sure the best supplies get to where they're needed first.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

You've brought up schools and education, and my question on that will be for Ms. Logel Carmichael and Ms. Russell, because this was mentioned as being an educational crisis for children.

Can either of you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Fonseca, I apologize. We'll have to leave it there. If you can quickly finish your question, maybe we can get an answer in writing from our witnesses.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Perhaps they could explain the educational crisis that COVID-19 is bringing to these regions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

The floor now goes to Mr. Bergeron for eight and a half minutes.

The floor is yours, sir.