Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I would say it's critical to continue working with local partners who are focused on working with civil society in the countries. In every country Oxfam works in, everything we do is with local partners. We do not do anything is isolation or do any direct implementation. It

Foreign Affairs committee  I would just say that gender equality and women's rights have been championed extensively by Canada in the past, so definitely we have a comparative advantage there. I just returned to Canada about nine months ago from a four-year posting abroad, and in all of my conversations wi

Foreign Affairs committee  If I may add, Oxfam does quite a bit of work on tax evasion, and I'll let my colleague Kelly speak to that. Another way to be effective is to focus on women and girls. There is a lot of is evidence that if you invest in women and girls there will be a multiplier effect. Women an

Foreign Affairs committee  I would fully agree with what Jim has been explaining. I would also say that at Oxfam we take a very strong inequality approach because inequality is the main driver of poverty, and inequality is a main driver of fragility as well. Even within countries it's looking at where thos

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm speaking from Oxfam; we were not consulted. I wasn't with Oxfam at the time when the original countries-of-focus list was developed in 2009, I believe. I don't think the consultations were extensive; and definitely on dropping Zambia from the countries-of-focus list, we were

Foreign Affairs committee  We would reinforce the fact that we need to target the poorest and most vulnerable regardless of where they are, whether they're in Haiti or in Afghanistan or in other countries. I would also say that in some countries it is possible to do more with less, so it's really about wha

Foreign Affairs committee  Bon après-midi tout le monde. Honourable members of the standing committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Christina Polzot, and I'll be testifying in conjunction with my colleague Kelly Bowden. Oxfam is part of a global confederation a