Thank you.
The women's program is a grants and contributions funding program. It is governed by the Treasury Board policy on transfer payments, which requires an evaluation of terms and conditions of programs be undertaken on a cyclical basis. In 2011-12 Status of Women Canada undertook an evaluation of our program, reviewing the Ts and Cs to see if any areas needed to be addressed to change the Ts and Cs.
The overall evaluation was very positive. It looked at five years of program activities and in particular the last two years. It found the focus of the program was still very relevant, a focus on gender equality. It found the design and the delivery mechanisms were appropriate to reach the population and the objectives we wanted to reach. It found we were stimulating the right partners, and in particular it highlighted the blueprint approach as very innovative and positive. It also found it was efficient in its operations.
It also indicated we needed to focus our projects more on widening their potential reach as well as the sustainable impact to have impact over a longer term.
With this in mind, the revised terms and conditions did increase the potential reach by adding new applicants and categories of applicants. One of those is cooperatives. In the past the cooperatives were not an eligible applicant, and we found a lot of the work they do at the community level made them very effective project deliverers.
We also looked at expanding the reach to aboriginal organizations. Most terms and conditions do not allow government organizations to apply for government funding, but we found in certain areas and in particular on reserve it was difficult to find organizations, NGOs, that could undertake projects. Where NGOs are lacking, we are able to have agreements with government organizations.
We can also have agreements with provincial and territorial governments, again where the NGO population or presence is insufficient to have projects.
We also increased flexibility in the types of activities we are able to fund. For example and in particular on engaging men and boys on violence, the previous Ts and Cs had a requirement that stated women had to be involved in all aspects of the project, which meant we couldn't work with a group of men, for example, that wanted to work with women. We modified that to say women are involved in many of the aspects of the project. I think that has gone a long way in allowing us to create those partnerships that are important to open the dialogue between men's and women's groups in communities.