Afghanistan committee  I would reiterate, Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe, my comments that women and girls—and marginalized communities, in which I would include LGBTQ Afghans—are significantly disproportionately negatively impacted by the current nature of the crisis. While Canadian funding is not currently activated in Afghanistan, as we've made clear in this presentation already, we're in very close and regular touch with our other CARE colleagues on the ground in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe. Let me make it clear that CARE Canada's Canadian funding is effectively not operational on the ground in Afghanistan, because of the restrictions of the Criminal Code. The current framing of the Criminal Code, as interpreted by the government, is that the risk of prosecution under the code would be entirely borne by humanitarian organizations like CARE if we were to proceed without an exemption or some form of workaround, or a change to the legislation as the current Criminal Code sits.

Afghanistan committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am very sorry. I had one of those horrible technological nightmares signing on. I am here; I am going to proceed and I ask for your patience. Please accept my very sincere apologies. I'm speaking to you from our offices located on the unceded and unabandoned territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe nation.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure. I think I'm going to really mirror what my colleagues from the Red Cross have said. Quite frankly, our job over time, in any country and in any context, is to work ourselves out of a job there. Our job is to build local infrastructure, local capacity and local leadership capabilities, so that over time we leave, and we leave a social infrastructure and a community infrastructure of leadership that can carry on long after we've been there.

Foreign Affairs committee  When we look at those troubling statistics around femicide, female genital mutilation and access to family planning, to contraceptives and to safe birthing situations, I think that globally we have made remarkable progress over the last 10, 15 or 20 years. Globally, virtually every single indicator—through the social development goals and through UN and other large metrics—was coming down, and I mean that in the sense of moving in the right direction.

Foreign Affairs committee  Maxime, do you want to lead off on that?

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll give you a concrete example. I was on the phone this morning, for a good chunk of time actually, with a woman named Ruth, who works for CARE in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. I asked Ruth what the impact of COVID has been in Cox's. She runs the gender-based violence and the gender emergencies programs for CARE in Cox's Bazar and oversees 152 staff.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, we have not.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we would work very quickly. We'd be able to pivot very quickly with some of the concept notes we already have in the pipeline to do some pretty life-saving and transformative work, even with just some top-up from that $400 million. We would be able to do some work in Sudan, for example, around PPE with community health workers.

Foreign Affairs committee  Who was the question for?

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm so sorry; I didn't hear the first part of your question. Maxime, would you answer that, please?

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm going to ask my colleague Maxime Michel to answer that. She's our head of humanitarian and resilience programs.

Foreign Affairs committee  Okay, thank you. Thanks, everyone. I apologize for the technology glitches at the start. Thank you for having us today. COVID-19 outbreaks are devastating in every context at this time, but nowhere will they be more profound than for the two billion people who are living in fragile and conflict-affected settings around the world.

Foreign Affairs committee  Will I still have my five minutes?

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I think all of us know that COVID-19 outbreaks are devastating in every context, but they will not be anywhere more profound than for the two billion people who are living in fragile and conflict-affected settings around the world.