Thank you very much. I'm really pleased to be here today.
When the Stephen Lewis Foundation was founded in 2003, there were two million people who were dying of AIDS-related illnesses every year in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them in their twenties, thirties and forties. In the face of that devastation, groups of community members were mobilizing to provide care, support and dignity to people in their final days of life and to support children and families affected by these deaths.
Despite their extensive, exhausting and vital work, these groups and organizations had minimal access to any of the HIV funding that was starting to flow globally.
Stephen Lewis and his daughter Ilana Landsberg-Lewis started the SLF to mobilize funds to support these community-led organizations, and 21 years later, we continue to champion the expertise of communities and the power of civil society across Africa.
While the HIV epidemic has changed significantly in those 21 years, the fact remains that the structure of the international HIV response, and international aid more broadly, has not changed substantially. Donor countries, including Canada, and the organizations that are based in them, continue to hold the power and maintain control over the resources. If you take only one thing from my remarks today, I hope it is this: We need a transformation in the way that Canada relates to Africa in our international co-operation and in broader diplomacy and trade, one that centres on the needs and priorities of communities in addressing poverty reduction, economic growth and the realization of human rights.
First, let’s look at Canada’s aid.
At the OECD DAC, the development assistance committee, Canada has been vocal in its support for enabling civil society and for addressing the closing of civic spaces, but we haven’t seen sufficient action from Canada with regard to investing in robust civil society organizations in Africa. In fiscal year 2022-23, a total of about $4.1 billion in Canadian international assistance was allocated through bilateral and multilateral spending for all African countries and for regional initiatives. By comparison, $5.4 billion went to Ukraine alone that year. In order to ensure we are a true partner to African countries and their people, Canada needs to significantly increase this number by growing the overall international assistance envelope.
I also want to focus here on the need for Canada to make sure that significantly more of the aid allocated for Africa actually makes it to civil society organizations and movements to support their priorities. Canada's international assistance continues to reinforce a colonial relationship with the African continent. Even though we may not have been a colonizer, we practise colonial practices in our aid. Canada must move away from top-down approaches to international assistance to one in which community-led organizations, like the SLF’s partners, have access to flexible long-term core funding.
This will require a whole-of-government approach. Changes need to be made within Treasury Board and Global Affairs Canada to ensure that Canadian international assistance is not wasted on layers of bureaucracy whose very purpose is purportedly to reduce misspending. The truth is that layers of bureaucracy and fiscal risk aversion mean tax dollars are tied up in red tape or in paying for program management by international NGOs and multilaterals, rather than facilitating the work of local civil society organizations that have the expertise, the relationships and the experience needed to realize goals in health, economic empowerment and human rights.
Second, the increases to and improvements in Canada’s international assistance must be accompanied by Canada’s leadership in human rights and public health in multilateral and bilateral spaces. Canada needs to be more outspoken and show leadership in its actions to protect public health and to stop human rights violations.
As an example of Canada’s failure, one can look at Canada’s long history of blocking or misusing the WTO's TRIPS agreement, from CAMR to COVID-19, which has cost the lives of far too many African people.
Another example that is front of mind for me today is the draconian anti-homosexuality act in Uganda, which Canada has not adequately stood up against, and the recently passed anti-LGBTQI bill in Ghana.
We must ensure Canadian international assistance funding is not going to groups promoting rights violations in other countries, and, more than that, we need a whole-of-government response to human rights crises. How are diplomacy, trade and aid working together to protect rights and to ensure that civil society organizations in Africa are well resourced to respond to emergencies and hold governments to account? Where is the red tape that prevents Canada from acting when action is needed, and how can we remove that red tape? Where is the political will, across parties, to stand up and speak out for what is right?
Finally, I can’t talk about Canada’s relationship to Africa without talking about the disproportionate and devastating impact of climate change on African nations and communities and on the lives and livelihoods of African people.
In 2022, the UN reported, “Scientists have long noted that countries in Africa have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions, yet climate change threatens to expose up to 118 million of the poorest Africans to droughts, floods and extreme heat by 2030.”
The SLF's community partners are already grappling with significant impacts of climate change. We have been hearing from partner after partner on the need to shift limited funding away from health programming towards climate change adaptation so that their community members can survive droughts and floods. Canada must step up, in both significantly reducing our contributions to climate change and in committing new international assistance dollars toward climate change preparedness, mitigation and adaptation in African communities—supporting solutions designed by Africans for their communities.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.