Foreign Affairs committee  Bill Gates said in his annual report that in 25 weeks in 2020, we lost 25 years of social progress. It's terrible what's happening, but it hasn't only been the number of children who are out of school. There are still 250 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who were in school

Foreign Affairs committee  I know that all of you have to respond to the concerns of your constituents. We've had philanthropists from across the country, from B.C. to Quebec, the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation, businesses across Canada and 55,000 Canadians give us donations for this. We ne

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, I think you can pass the word that Canadians, in every single one of our ridings, are making donations to UNICEF, Save the Children, Dr. Al-Kassem and many other organizations. It is popular, and Canadians recognize it. Then you can make the change so that we can meet Leste

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  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 worker

Foreign Affairs committee  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

Foreign Affairs committee  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

Foreign Affairs committee  We're jumping in. If we're talking about development, it's engaging local governments and local communities. That makes a profound difference. A few years ago the Government of India stopped relying on foreign aid to buy vaccines, for example, and right there is one-seventh of

Foreign Affairs committee  The global lockdown, for instance, when we were trying to get PPE into different countries—and we were able to get almost two million...to support health workers—stopped a lot of movement among countries and had a terrible effect. The biggest effect and the biggest suffering, I,

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for having me and my colleague Annie Bodmer-Roy here today. UNICEF is the world’s largest humanitarian organization for children. We work in 190 countries to help children survive and thrive. Today UNICEF released our humanitarian acti

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's very difficult. You would know better than I do, sir, about what is needed inside the country. I don't know if we've reached that point or not. I think our colleagues would know. We work more on the humanitarian side of it, but I think we're certainly at a desperate time. I

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We need to take the doctrine seriously. A real arms embargo is important because clearly what the international community has been doing has not been sufficient so far.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  May I answer that?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Reintegration is something that we are responsible for at UNICEF. When I used to work for Médecins Sans Frontières, we knew in Sierra Leone that UNICEF was responsible for that. It is one of the most difficult things you can imagine. After what the children have been through, and

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think it's important—this is more on the public perception side, which I think can influence us—to tie in the fact that this famine would not be happening if it were not for the war, and that therefore things like the arms embargo and a political solution are needed to address