Foreign Affairs committee  I think this is really where the country platform idea has specific purchase, especially in countries—

Foreign Affairs committee  Typically, it's the countries where it is more difficult that you need the country platform all the more because you have a lot of aid actors all contending for certain areas, certain regions and certain projects. You have a government that is weak, so it's dispersed. It's not coming together.

Foreign Affairs committee  I believe the short answer is yes because it's a one-stop shop. It's a place where people can come together—governments, societal stakeholders and partners—to decide what the top priorities are, what everyone is doing in that space and how Canada can contribute in a way that builds coalitions and that helps us punch above our weight because we're contributing thought leadership, policy leadership and programming leadership in a place that's far more efficient.

Foreign Affairs committee  The country platform is in a place, like Mozambique, where you have all the partners that come together with government. They set policy standards. They look at troubleshooting what's happening in a country. They look at where their resource gaps are, where their bottlenecks and political issues are, or where the sector reforms are.

Foreign Affairs committee  A resilience framework would have two components. One is looking at the risks that a particular country or region is facing and how they interact, the crises that are also coming about, the root causes and the political economy. The second element is looking at three specific capacities that need to be cultivated for a resilience approach: an absorptive capacity, an adaptive capacity and a transformative capacity.

Foreign Affairs committee  It can truly be a whole-of-government approach where the defence side, the humanitarian side and the development side are all looking at what kinds of capacities can be strengthened for resilience in their spectrums and then coming together to address those collectively.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to contribute to this critical study on Canada's approach to Africa. Food for the Hungry, including our FH Canada affiliate, has been working in Africa for four decades. We design, develop and deliver catalytic solutions that build resilience so that children, families and community can flourish.