Good afternoon, everyone.
I would like to start by thanking the committee for the opportunity today. I would like to acknowledge that I am joining you from Treaty 6, the traditional and ancestral territory of Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Saulteaux and Nakota Sioux.
I also want to underscore that we are in the decade of people of African descent—a decade dedicated to cognition, justice and development.
My name is Sharif Haji. I have the privilege to serve as the executive director of the Council for the Advancement of African Canadians in Alberta. We are known as the Africa Centre. We are a non-profit, charitable organization that has been in existence for the past 16 years with a strong relationship and partnership with the City of Edmonton.
We also have offices in Calgary. We consider ourselves as the largest Black-led non-profit organization in the western provinces of Canada. The Africa Centre is one of the SBCCI intermediary organizations. Also, we are a former recipient of the funding prior to becoming an intermediary based out of western Canada. I have the opportunity to speak from both sides: what it's like as a recipient and my experience as an intermediary organization.
We became an intermediary just a year ago in September 2021 through an RFP run by ESDC—a western Canada-based intermediary. We have not been part of the first call for proposals, but we joined the other three intermediaries in the second call for proposals. Even as a latecomer to the intermediary role, thanks to the other intermediaries—my colleagues, who were just on the call a few minutes ago—the Africa Centre was able to hit the ground running and execute its initiative at the same base as other intermediary organizations. It's a lesson of showing that walking together and learning from each other is what rose us to a level that we could be on the same base as the rest.
We also brought a network and access, as well as local lenses from the community, to reach and support a higher number of organizations based out in the western provinces of Canada that had been missed during the first call for proposals. That highlights the fact that engaging a western intermediary organization was an overdue step to ensure regional equity and representation across the country for Black organizations seeking SBCCI funding.
The process is uniform for all intermediaries, and this has been helpful so that we can walk together in our alignment, whether it is a call for proposal dates, announcements or disbursement dates so that we don't bring confusion within the Black grassroots organizations. We also coordinate on processes, such as information sessions, grant reviews, etc.
As far as selection is concerned, we had to put an independent committee in place, and that independent committee was identified through a call for expression of interest. We had 47 members of a committee that applied, and we ended up identifying nine committee members across the country as members of a grant review committee that provides recommendations, ranks applications, looks into an alignment with the purpose of a call, and then provides recommendations for funding. Each committee member independently reviewed the processes and the applications, provided ratings and then came together to discuss and create a consensus in terms of the way moving forward.
With regard to the organizations we supported following the call for proposals, in response the Africa Centre received a total of 147 applications of which 130 of them met our criteria for funding. Out of the 130 applications, we have prioritized funding 68 grassroots organizations with an investment of $2.6 million. About 70% of these were based in the western regions of Canada, with Alberta representing the highest number, followed by B.C. in the west. However, in terms of overall ranking, Alberta had the highest number that we've funded, and Ontario was the second. The least was Manitoba as far as funding is concerned, as well as the number of applications that were received.
Areas that we focused on were governance, as well as operational excellence. Out of the 68 that we funded, there were 54 organizations that were not funded and were deferred for subsequent calls for proposals.
I quickly will highlight now—