Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs
Issue 5 - Evidence - Meeting of February 9, 2005
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 9, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs met this day at 3:51 p.m. to examine the development and security challenges facing Africa; the response of the international community to enhance that continent's development and political stability; and Canadian foreign policy as it relates to Africa.
Senator Peter A. Stollery (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, I call the meeting to order. I want to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. We are continuing with our special study on Africa as ordered by the Senate on December 8.
[Translation]
We are pleased to have with us today representatives of three departments who are going to talk to us about Africa.
First of all, from the Africa Bureau of Foreign Affairs Canada, Ms. Anne-Marie Bourcier, Director General, accompanied by Ms. Chantal Chastenay, Director of the Maghreb and Arabian Peninsula Division, as well as Ms. Ulla Kourany, Senior Policy Advisor, NEPAD, G8 Africa and Pan-African institutions.
[English]
We will then hear from two new witnesses from the Africa and Middle East Branch of CIDA — Ms. Nadia Kostiuk, Director General, Policy, Strategic Planning and Technical Services, and Ms. Ellen Wright, Manager, Governance, Security and Communications Unit, Canada Fund for Africa Secretariat.
Our final witness today will be from the Department of National Defence, in the person of Colonel Denis Thompson, who is Director of Peacekeeping Policy and who was also with us yesterday.
After gaining an overview of the history of Africa last week, we focused our attention yesterday on the challenges facing today's Africa. Today, we will turn our attention to the response of the international community, including Africa itself, to the challenges we identified yesterday. In particular, we want to hear from the witnesses testimony that will enable us and the Canadian public to better understand how the Canadian government perceives this response.
We will continue on this topic next Tuesday, when we will receive officials from International Trade Canada and the Department of Finance.
To give you an overview of our upcoming meetings, on February 16, we plan to have a meeting on the policies and involvement of the Canadian government toward Africa, that is, the government's response to these challenges.
As I said yesterday, on Monday, we will have the pleasure of receiving Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, who will be with us to discuss his views on Africa. Another defining witness will be Mr. K.Y. Amoako, the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, who will be with us next Tuesday.
[Translation]
Ms. Bourcier you may begin.
Ms. Anne-Marie Bourcier, Director General, Africa Bureau, Foreign Affairs Canada: Mr. Chairman, I would like to talk to you today about the efforts being made by the international community to meet the development and security challenges in Africa. We started on this theme on our dialogue last night. It is a great honour for me to continue that discussion today.
The failure in the 1990s of the international community and Africans to master Africa's peace and security challenges was largely responsible for a catastrophic decade of violence and human rights violation. Millions of ordinary Africans — men, women and children — paid the price. A few countries from the list is indictment enough: Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Angola and the Congo.
Strong, effective coordination and collaboration among African and donor countries, and international institutions are necessary to meet this fundamental challenge.
I would like to highlight this today by discussing how we are tackling some of the most important questions. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but is representative of the problems we face.
Congo/DRC and the Great Lakes region: instability and war in the Congo and the Great Lakes region from 1996 to 2002 resulted in the worst humanitarian crisis in recent history, with over three million dead directly and indirectly, and growth human rights violations, especially against women and children.
Canada, along with like-minded countries, has played a lead role in the long, difficult and risky process to try to fix the problems and disastrous effects of war in the Congo and Great Lakes region. Recent progress achieved will require a long-term effort to consolidate.
Now let us turn to West Africa and the conflict and small arms problems there. A decade-long vicious conflict in West Africa witnessed gross human rights violations, dragging in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Although the situation has improved in Sierra Leone and Liberia following concerted international action, progress is very fragile. The unresolved, serious civil conflicts in Côte d'Ivoire risks putting that country into failed-state status and undermining stability throughout the region. Progress would not have been possible without sustained support by the international community, including Canada.
Small arms proliferation has been one of West Africa's — and for that matter, the continent's — most pernicious problems and a major human security threat. Uncontrolled, illicit supplies of small arms and light weapons have fueled conflict and human rights violations, compromised the stability of States and undermined development, not to mention the terrible toll of civilian casualties.
Only international action can deal effectively with the illegal trafficking and conflict dynamics that cross national boundaries.
Canada's SALW program will attempt to remove illicit weapons from circulation in selected West African communities in four countries.
Now let us talk about support for the African Union. Through the peace and security function of the African Union, Africans have demonstrated a greater political world and taken more effective action to address conflict, and I will just mention Darfur, Côte d'Ivoire and Burundi.
The international community must now support Africans with the means to do the job. Canada is also engaged in strengthening the African Union peacekeeping capacity. Canada contributed $3 million to a Rapid Response Mechanism, to allow the African Union to respond rapidly to emerging and incipient crises and $500,000 for the establishment of an African Union special representative for the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
The situation in Sudan also demonstrates the challenges and opportunities facing the international community in dealing with a serious conflict and humanitarian crisis. The past month has brought both optimism — the peace agreement ending the North/South civil war — and cause for serious concern — the continuing conflict in Darfur and the ongoing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by all parties to that conflict.
Senator Jaffer, Canada's special envoy, remains actively engaged and will visit the region again within the next month.
On the ground in Darfur, Canada has provided $20 million for the African Union monitoring mission, including critical helicopter support, military planning and equipment.
Canada welcomed the recent report of the UN International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, tabled last week. Canada strongly supports the commission's recommendation that the security council immediately refer the situation to the International Criminal Court as the appropriate legal instrument to address the reports finding and bring those responsible to justice.
[English]
Dealing with threats to human security in Africa remains one of the greatest challenges for the international community. Africa has seen more civilian casualties in conflict than any other region in the world. Canada places the protection of civilians among its highest foreign policy priorities. Foreign Affairs Canada's human security program, which invests $10 million per year strategically in initiatives that strengthen the ability of the global community to respond to threats to human security and to the support of peaceful governance, has a budget, which is soon to expire, of $15 million. It focuses on domestic capacity building, diplomatic leadership and advocacy, multilateral mechanisms and country-specific initiatives that protect people from threats to their life, safety and rights. The most challenging part of the protection agenda is what to do in the case of internal war, a type of conflict that often pits fundamental principles of sovereignty and non-intervention directly against humanitarian obligations.
The report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty — R2P — addresses this issue. It advances the idea that sovereignty confers not only rights but also responsibility for the maintenance of humanitarian standards. It proposes that states have the primary responsibility to protect their own population, but when a state is unable or unwilling to ensure such protection, this falls to the international community.
In extreme cases, such as genocide and other mass atrocities, the report argues that military intervention can be justified. However, we are also hopeful that the momentum on UN reform, fuelled by the recent report of the high-level panel, will be helpful in advancing this agenda. Canada is a strong and active supporter of follow-up efforts on the panel's effort. Our immediate focus is on building consensus around the panel of R2P-related recommendations.
Canada is committed to working with Africans and our international partners to deal effectively with African security challenges. The immense breadth, depth and complexity of these challenges are evident from this brief overview. It will demand a sustained, long-term commitment from African and donor governments and international institutions. We must build on recent and encouraging progress and maintain this momentum. However, problems that have festered for decades will not be solved overnight. We must persevere in face of the difficulties and the inevitable bumps in the road, for the alternative of falling back into the chasm of past years is too terrible to accept.
Again on this issue, Mr. Chairman, as we expressed yesterday, we have an approach that involves diplomacy, development and defence. I welcome the opportunity to have my colleagues at the table pursue this dialogue with you.
Ms. Nadia Kostiuk, Director General, Policy, Strategic Planning and Technical Services, Africa and Middle East Branch, Canadian International Development Agency: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be with you. I listened with great interest to the broad-ranging discussion that you had yesterday, and it is a pleasure to be here to continue this dialogue with you.
Ms. Bourcier has provided you with a comprehensive perspective on the international community's response to security challenge. I thought that today we could take the opportunity to focus on the broad international community development response.
I should like to put this into the context of who, what and how. The first issue is: Who is the international community? Second: What are we doing? Third: How is the response changing?
The components of the international community must start with Africa itself. It is, as you heard yesterday, 53 individual countries. They are also members of the continent and identify in that way. They are members of regional organizations and, of course, they are also members of the global community and of its institutions.
We are also a community of 22 donor countries that are members of the OECD, but there are also increasingly non-OECD actors, and these of would include China and India, for example, that are also now active in Africa.
Within donor countries, it must be stressed that various government players contribute to the achievement of development objectives. In Canada, for example, in addition to the departments represented here, Health Canada, Environment Canada, the RCMP, Revenue Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency are just some of the players that actually work on the implementation of Canadian activities abroad.
We also have the multilateral system. International financial institutions are key there. They include the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and, of particular, and I hope growing, importance to Africa, the African Development Bank.
Most people are familiar with some of the key players of the United Nations system. They include UNICEF, the UN Development Program, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Program, World Health Organization and UNAIDS. The list is very long. You can see that some of them focus on the short-term emergency response, while others are involved in longer-term development issues. The Commonwealth and the Francophonie also play an important role in that continent.
We must not forget, as well, not-for-profit organizations, both national and international, such as NGOs, academic institutions and think-tanks. The private sector is increasingly playing a role, and African development does depend on the private sector playing a larger role, particularly the African private sector, and we touched on briefly yesterday.
[Translation]
Second, the response of the international community is also changing. Development is being refocused and revitalized. Africa is strengthening its leadership and ownership of the development agenda. Donor approaches and partnerships are evolving to better respond. And Canada is making progress on strengthening aid effectiveness.
[English]
As you see on page 3, there was a lot of soul-searching in the late 1990s on how best to make inroads with regard to some seemingly intractable development challenges. There was considerable progress on debt reduction, and Canada played a lead role in that, but there were not enough sustainable development results. It was clear that an uncoordinated approach to development had undermined the ability of developing countries to make progress and to exercise effective ownership of their priorities.
The Millennium Summit of September 2000 focused on what we are doing to meet specific quantified targets as set out in the Millennium Development Goals, with poverty reduction as the core objective of development assistance programs. The short story is that we are all working on the same core issues: poverty reduction and increasingly it is meeting the MDGs. However, there is an addition to that specialization, according to specific mandates and the priorities that individual countries have.
You will find that yesterday's discussion has already touched on some of these issues. My colleague, Ms. Ellen Wright, is here to respond to questions about NEPAD, the AU in general, and about security issues with which CIDA is involved. Ms. Wright works on the Canada Front for Africa, as the chairman noted.
On page 6, you will see that we began to examine how to strengthen aid effectiveness, resulting in big changes to the way in which large parts of the international community work together, which has been important. As I was listening to the discussion yesterday — in a way I wished that we had more time between the presentations, because we would have done some things differently. It is hard to convince people that process matters, but in this instance process truly does matter. While it can seem dry, it is fundamental to the accomplishment of some goals. The goals are clear and they are easier to relate to. We can talk about HIV/AIDS, poverty and children in primary school. A bunch of bureaucrats sitting around tables talking about how to do something better is less sexy, but I am making the point that it is important. I will tell you what has been happening.
There is a long list of meetings that have taken place over the course of a number of years. They have brought us to the point where we looked at policy issues. A critical study from the World Bank looked at rethinking aid. One of the authors was named Dollar, and so everyone talks about the “Dollar study” — bit we are not actually talking about money. The Doha Declaration and the trade round were important. We also had the Monterrey consensus, which focused on volume, and there was the Rome declaration on harmonization. Harmonization is important because it takes a great deal of donor effort to put it together in the way that is simpler, more harmonized, and aligns policies and practices with how the developing country actually works.
What does this mean in concrete terms? For donors, it means changes to both content and process. It also means aligning development assistance behind the priorities that are identified by the country in question, as opposed to arriving with our own priorities. That historically was how donor agencies tended to operate. We are increasingly pooling funds with other donors to support a strategy in a specific sector — for example, health or education. If we put our money together, we could accomplish more. It is also easier for the government to deal with one pool of money rather than with multiple pots of money that they have to manage and report on.
Of course, expected results are defined for each stage of each program. There are the inevitable and important levels of monitoring put in place to ensure that funding is contributing to the achievement of sustainable development results. The developing countries want us to make our funding more predictable, because they are dependent on the funding to keep their systems running, to buy textbooks and to do many different activities. If they do not know when the money is coming and how much it will be, then it is difficult for them to plan their work.
There are also practical issues, such as agreeing on one issue rather than on 16. There are many different financial reporting systems and many countries in which there are 16 or more active donors. There can be a multiplicity of reporting requirements and that strains limited capacity. Another is to coordinate better technical missions. Some studies show how much time officials in developing countries can spend meeting with people like me, who want to see what is happening and have questions answered. If the donors were better organized and had people working on the same files talk to these officials at the same time, clearly there would be greater efficiency of effort and time. It would make a big difference.
As you will see on page 7, policy rigour is applied by an important organization, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. It deals primarily with the bilateral countries as well as the multilateral system, to ensure that we are headed in the same direction and that we define clearly different terms that matter across the board. As well, they track the volume of assistance that goes to developing countries. When they come out with their report, everyone pays attention because it has that famous ODA/GNP ratio that is very much in the public domain.
There is also an important practitioners network called the Strategic Partnership with Africa. It very much motivates donors to make progress on harmonization and alignment. There is quite a bit of peer pressure. I was at that meeting in Johannesburg last month, and it was interesting to see donors sitting down and asking how they could do this in a better way. They put together statistics and realized that either some people had had too many missions or that they were not aligning their priorities very well.
We have provided on page 8 a small graphic that shows the ranking, in 2003, of the contributions of the 22 OECD members to Africa. Canada provided $41.5 million of its total ODA to Africa that year. We do not have more up-to-date figures to provide at this time, because they do not exist, certainly not from a source that would provide us with all the other donor information as well. We are well positioned beside the U.K. and we are working hard to ensure that the money is spent well.
Briefly, because this will be the subject of future sessions, I would like to say a little about Canada in the context of this new agenda and the new approaches. We had an important policy paper that came out in 2002, called “Strengthening Aid Effectiveness.” It committed to putting greater focus to Canada's aid program by increasing investments in a few priority sectors in a more limited number of the world's poorest countries that, as we have been stressing, demonstrated their determination and ability to use aid efficiently. The graphic clearly shows that Japan, Australia and New Zealand are in a position to have a geographically restricted program. Africa is not a high priority for them. Their focus is on Asia. There are a few countries without particularly strong historical links that are at the other end of the scale, where they have taken a policy decision to focus on Africa, such as Ireland and Belgium — well, Belgium has a history. They are also quite focused. Canada is a member of the Commonwealth and the Francophonie and, if I may look more broadly, also of the OAS and APEC. We have a broad foreign policy, which has meant that over time, our aid program has been quite dispersed. We are in the process of narrowing it down and trying to concentrate, but this is not an easy thing to do.
As someone mentioned yesterday, we now have six countries of concentration in Africa on which we are focusing resources. Canada, along with other major donors such as the U.K., the Netherlands and the Nordic countries is working to implement these new approaches.
I was outside of CIDA for four years. I just returned in the fall. I am impressed with the changes that have been made. I am not expecting any reward from my colleagues who have been there the whole time for saying these things, but the donor community has its act together. There is more to do, but we are working hard in response to a clear signal from Africa that they want to get ahead; they want to make lives better for their people. It is good that we are all working together on that. I look forward to your questions.
The Chairman: Ireland and the Irish Catholic church have a great and long history, particularly in the Nigeria school system.
Senator Corbin: Could we have a matter clarified?
[Translation]
The graph on page 8 shows percentages. There is a column on the left.
Ms. Kostiuk: Yes.
Senator Corbin: How much has each country committed, because 84 per cent of $50 million and 41.5 per cent of $150 million, those percentages are not the same thing.
Ms. Kostiuk: You are right. It is hard to make an absolute comparison. I do not have all of the figures but we can get them. Assistance programs vary greatly. The US program is extremely high volume, but the percentage of GNP is not very high. The British spend much more than we do. I will try to get specific figures.
Senator Corbin: That just reflects performance in terms of commitments, but not the actual contribution.
Ms. Kostiuk: No.
[English]
Colonel Denis Thompson, Director, Peacekeeping Policy, National Defence: Honourable senators, I wish to emphasize the 3D team — a theme in our briefings this afternoon.
Given the thorough review that has already been provided by my colleagues, I intend to give you a brief overview of current international missions and the Canadian Forces contributions to them.
[Translation]
Currently, Canadian Forces are involved in missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Sudan. DND is also providing training to Africans in Canada and in Africa. With respect to its military training assistance program (MTAP), Mr. Andrew Rasilius, MTAP Director, will be visiting you on February 16, 2005, and will be able on that occasion to give you more information on that program and to answer your questions.
The military missions in Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN mission known as MONUC, was set up in 1999, and has expanded regularly to its current level of over 13,000 troops attempting to put an end to the bloodiest conflict in Africa. Canada has contributed eight staff officers to MONUC headquarters, including the deputy chief of staff operations.
The Canadian Forces deployed two Hercules aircrafts and six personnel for a brief period in the summer of 2003, to contribute to a European Union deployment in eastern Congo during the Bunya crisis.
[English]
Sierra Leone has made tremendous progress toward a fully functioning state since the end of the civil war there. Canada contributes to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone — UNAMSIL — with three military observers. It began with an authorized strength of 6,000, in 1999, and doubled through the year 2001. It is now slowly drawing down, and this UN mission in Sierra Leone will close in July of this year. It has been assessed that the Government of Sierra Leone security forces are sufficiently prepared to fill the vacuum left by the UN when they withdraw.
To assist in the creation of a professional military in the republic of Sierra Leone, Canada provides eight soldiers, officers and NCOs who are serving inside a U.K.-led international military advisory training team providing training directly to the Sierra Leone army.
Earlier this year, as well, Sierra Leone as a country was re-instituted in the MTAP program I spoke about earlier, after they had been suspended due to the civil war.
In Sudan, the conflict that we often refer to as the north-south conflict is winding down as the Government of Sudan and the southern rebels have come to a comprehensive peace agreement at the beginning of January. This comprehensive peace agreement has resulted in the Security Council discussing in detail a Chapter VI mandate that will go to an observer mission in southern Sudan called UNMISUD — United Nations Mission in Sudan. Of importance to Canada is UNMISUD's plan to deploy the headquarters of the multinational standby readiness brigade — SHIRBRIG — of which Canada is a member, as a nucleus of the larger force headquarters.
Canada contributes 15 staff officers to this headquarters, including the deputy force commander for this mission, BGen. Greg Mitchell. Once the mandate of the peacekeeping mission is approved, it is expected that this force will deploy in short order.
We are all aware of the second conflict in the Sudan, which is in Darfur, and is currently being monitored by an African Union force. However, the AU — and we have heard about this both on the development and the foreign affairs sides — is limited in its ability to undertake such a large military operation. Therefore, Canada and other western nations have been assisting the AU at their request in these efforts. In our case, two Canadian Forces officers have been deployed to Addis Ababa since September 22, providing planning expertise to the AU in conjunction with the United States and many European Union representatives.
Additionally, material assistance has been forthcoming from the west. This particular mission is estimated to cost about U.S. $250 million for one year. In this regard, Canada's contribution has been to lease 15 helicopters on behalf of the AU and to provide 2,600 sets of body armour and helmets to African Union soldiers.
[Translation]
In the past year, through our military assistance training program, we have provided language training as well as staff and peacekeeping courses to students from various African countries here in Canada and in Africa. We will continue to provide these training options over the next year.
[English]
At this moment, the CF is not in a position to increase dramatically our contribution to African deployments, as we are in a much-publicized operational pause to recover from the surge in activity that was related to the campaign against terror. However, even a small number of Canadian Forces personnel can make a huge difference in Africa. That is largely due to the fact that Canadian Forces soldiers and officers are well trained to function in the African setting and are often moved into critical billets in recognition of this ability. As well, Canada does not have a colonial history and hence no baggage. Her soldiers are well respected as impartial arbitrators on the continent.
Many African officers have received some sort of instruction, through the MTAP program I mentioned, in a CF institution and have therefore developed a positive outlook toward Canada.
[Translation]
We also have a large number of members and officers who speak fluently both of the most used languages in sub-Saharan Africa, French and English, and can therefore address people directly.
[English]
In anticipation of continued demands for Canadian Forces participation in African peace support operations, we in the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence are actively monitoring and seeking out new initiatives to build peacekeeping capacity — which I mentioned yesterday — among our African colleagues.
That concludes my statement, and I would be happy to take any questions.
Senator Di Nino: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we listen to our first set of witnesses, and then yourself, and some of you here yesterday as well, I am getting mixed messages. I should probably acknowledge that you probably have a more frustrating job than some of us do in Parliament trying to get legislation through. It seems like the success stories are few and the frustrations are many.
With respect to every witness we have had so far — and we certainly acknowledge that it is the beginning of our study — we hear about additional studies and committees.
In the opinion of the witnesses that are addressing us, Mr. Chairman, are we making progress, or is it just slow and tedious, towards trying to identify and deal with some of these issues.
In your opinion, where are we doing a good job and where we are doing a bad job, and where do you think we should be addressing the issues that will most have an impact on moving the yard stick forward a little bit?
Ms. Ellen Wright, Manager, Governance, Security and Communications Unit, Canada Fund for Africa Secretariat, Africa and Middle East Branch, Canadian International Development Agency: I think all of us here at this table feel that we are not working with entire hopelessness and that in fact there is progress. One problem is that the media does not report very often on the progress in Africa. We hear more of the dire stories out of Africa than we do of some of the successes.
However, if you want an example, since 1990 there have been multi-party elections in 42 of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Tanzania is surpassing its enrolment targets for primary school-aged children and has built some 16,000 new classrooms and more than 2,000 homes for teachers. In Uganda and Senegal, HIV/AIDS infections have reversed, have dropped from 14 per cent to below 8 per cent. Mozambique and Angola both have stopped long-running civil wars, and we are beginning to see, particularly in Mozambique, success there. So, yes, there are success stories. We do not work in absolute hopelessness.
I am sure Ms. Bourcier can add to my short list. There are other successes as well.
Ms. Bourcier: Thank you, Senator Di Nino, for your good question.
As my colleague pointed out, the international media reports more on conflicts and difficulties than they do on positive developments.
It must be recognized — as I was pointing out to you yesterday and partially today — that there has been progress in Angola, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. In Senegal, there is the signature of an agreement between Casamance and the rest of the country. In Sudan, the way ahead is very challenging; however, nevertheless, there is an end to more than 20 years of civil war.
At the same time, we have seen countries that were on a very positive developmental trend being challenged in the context of their governance pattern and who are in conflict presently — for example, this is the case in Ivory Coast. This is part of development. What is important is that, for those countries, there is an association with an ownership of models of development that is taking place versus what had been either imposed or left by the country that was there to colonize. The models that are being implemented are more entrenched into the development perspective of the country and more germane to their reality.
At the same time, they are addressed in the context that is challenged by other countries. We were talking yesterday of the process of the peer review mechanism. Canada is going through similar processes of review at the OECD in the various committees on DAC. It may be on regional integration. There are several committees at the OECD where we appear and are challenged — and we do not necessarily like as a country to be criticized by others — so we can imagine that it is the same for African countries. However, they have volunteered in a progressive way, and to a certain extent are giving the international donor communities some lessons in humility.
Where there are still issues that remain of concern, I qualify that around all the issues of the patience — there needs to be time to act.
[Translation]
You have to give them time to act. Asking a country to change its governance practices in three months is not realistic. Asking a country to do so over a five or ten-year period, to make continuous progress, to move from the multiparty stage to parties that are truly committed to governance, these are very important stages that you can contribute positively to. In that regard, the Association of Canadian parliamentarians who work with Africa are very well received by their African colleagues. Africa is very interested in Canadian models. You can see this in Sudan. Sudan is interested in our model of federation and our parliamentary models. These are niches that we can invest in as Canadians to continue contributing, but we can only do this with others.
[English]
The Chairman: I would ask the witnesses to keep their answers short, as I have other questioners on my list, and I know that Ms. Kostiuk would like to get more in.
Ms. Kostiuk: Mozambique had terrible civil war that was funded from outside the country and lasted through the 1980s and into 1990s. There was terrible destruction. Fifty per cent of schools were destroyed and millions of people were displaced.
The economy of Mozambique grew at 9 per cent annually from 1997 to 2002. The absolute poverty headcount is down from 69 per cent to 54 per cent. It is still the sixth-poorest country in the world, but the government is committed to education. At independence in 1975, literacy was 7 per cent. In 1980, it was 25 per cent and in 2004 it was 46.5 per cent. The number of people continuing schooling to grade five increased from 22 per cent in 1991 to 40 per cent in 2003.
One million children are still out of school, but it is real progress to have that much of an increase when you consider what it does for a country to have that many more people who are literate and can work better in their own environment. That is not easy and it will be hard to sustain this economically, but they are working at it and making huge strides.
Senator Di Nino: I do not want an answer to this now, but what do you suggest we should focus on? I do not want to lead you, but with regard to agricultural subsidies, et cetera, is aid tied that perhaps should not be tied?
Senator Downe: I would like a clarification from anyone on the panel. Of the 48 sub-Saharan countries, how many have democratic governments?
Ms. Kostiuk: Forty-three of 48.
Senator Downe: Forty-three out of 48 have democratic elections?
The Chairman: I do not think that was what was said. They have elections. That is not the same thing as democratic governments.
Senator Downe: Let me reword it. How many of the 48 have electoral democracy?
Ms. Kostiuk: As defined by whom? That is a difficult question. There are organizations that study this, and they do not agree on the answer. Transparency International would have one view of this and others would not necessarily agree with all of their assessments. For example, Zimbabwe has had elections and there are more planned for the end of March. However, I do not think there are many people in the world who think that will make it a democratic country.
Senator Downe: Just to be clear, in excess of 40 of the 48 had some type of multi-party election, but the government may not be democratically elected?
Ms. Kostiuk: There are different levels of success, but increasingly with election monitoring we have a better sense of how the elections have gone. The good news is that civil societies in those countries are making great strides in terms of putting more pressure on their governments to improve transparency and to improve the way the elections work. That is happening even in Zimbabwe.
Senator Downe: Some countries are obviously doing better with regard to good governance, transparency and democratic elections. Are we focusing the majority of resources and expenditures in those countries or are we spreading them widely across many countries? In other words, are we rewarding what we consider to be good behaviour?
Ms. Kostiuk: We are increasingly trying to reward good behaviour, and that is an approach that the donor community is taking. It is a fundamental premise with NEPAD. The new deal between Africa and the donor community is that they will try to strengthen their governance and to improve the way they operate, and we in return will help them to make greater progress.
Senator Downe: So our funding has shifted over the last two or three years and will shift in the future?
Ms. Kostiuk: The funding is shifting to those countries. We expect that CIDA's top nine bilateral African programs, for example, will be receiving 68 per cent of planned disbursements by this coming fiscal year. Within that, as an agency we spend about 20 per cent specifically on governance, but in some countries it is higher than that. In Tanzania, for example, 40 per cent of our bilateral program deals with good governance and democratic development specifically.
Senator Downe: In its presentation last night, Foreign Affairs mentioned an office or funding for Ambassador Fowler. Is he still involved in Africa?
Ms. Bourcier: Yes.
Senator Downe: What is his role?
Ms. Bourcier: Ambassador Robert Fowler is the personal representative of the Prime Minister in Africa. He is active within the G8 context. He was very active in preparation for Kananaskis and has maintained that role. He continues to be active representing and accompanying us on the policy and programming issues. He is very active with the African leaders who are members of the NEPAD executive secretariat.
May I take this opportunity to invite my colleague to complement the information we were just discussing about how we interact with partner countries?
Senator Downe: Perhaps I could ask one follow-up question first.
Am I correct that Ambassador Fowler has been asked by the current Prime Minister to carry on until the next G8?
Ms. Bourcier: He has been asked to carry on at least to the G8, as long as the government is in power and as long as he is active professionally. He is resident in Rome.
Senator Downe: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the next time Ambassador Fowler is in Ottawa he could appear before this committee.
The Chairman: We can easily arrange that because, as you know, Ambassador Fowler is a good friend of mine.
Senator Downe: Failing that, we could all go to Rome.
Ms. Ulla Kourany, Senior Policy Advisor, NEPAD, G8 Africa and Pan-African Institutions, Foreign Affairs Canada: I just want to add something with respect to Ambassador Fowler's role at the G8 Gleneagles summit in the U.K.. The personal representatives of the G8 leaders have been tasked with presenting a progress report on how the G8 as a whole has been doing in terms of commitment to their G8 action plan since the last review at the G8 summit in Evion, and Ambassador Fowler and his team here in Ottawa are preparing Canada's response for that report.
I would like to add some information in response to your question regarding governance. As you know, we touched yesterday on the APRM process — the Africa Peer Review Mechanism. So far, of the 53 countries that are part of the African Union, 24 countries have signed on to the APRM. The process will review political governance, economic governance, corporate governance and socio-economic development.
Within the Africa action plan, the G8 countries have stipulated that they will be informed by the result of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism, to build on the result once they start producing. Four countries have already undertaken the review and another four are planned for this year. Based on the result that will be produced by the African Peer Review Mechanism, those G8 countries will be informed by the result to build on enhanced partnerships with African countries that have demonstrated commitment and reform based on governance.
[Translation]
Senator Corbin: I have a document that can be downloaded from the Internet, entitled Crisis Watch, which is published by the International Crisis Group. Can you tell me whether it is a reliable document that provides data that can be used as a barometer of the situation in each country, i.e., whether it is improving, stabilizing or worsening? How much credibility do you give this document? I see that a number of Canadians are members of the board of directors of this group, including Barbara McDougall, and former minister Allen MacEachen used to be a member of the group. Is it a good document, a good source of information?
Ms. Bourcier: Yes, it is an organization with great resonance and analytical capacity, that produces documents that everyone does not always agree with, and that is okay. But on the whole, it is a very serious group.
Senator Corbin: I would like to focus my few questions on Ms. Kostiuk's comment, and this has been one of my concerns ever since I took an interest in these matters in my 40 years in Parliament, that you decided to focus your efforts on target countries.
Ms. Kostiuk: Yes.
Senator Corbin: You have identified six countries; instead of scattering your assistance among small, temporary projects, you decided to concentrate your efforts. Can you explain to us not why that makes a lot of sense, but how you came to be where you are today with this new way of doing things?
Ms. Kostiuk: I should say that this has more to do with Canada's program than with the international community. We will be in a position to discuss this with you at greater length in the next few weeks. There is a list of countries that are well-known by the international community as good performers.
Senator Corbin: Can you name them?
Ms. Kostiuk: Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Senegal, Mali.
Senator Corbin: Those that have performed well in terms of democracy and accountability.
Ms. Kostiuk: Yes, they are engaged in the NEPAD and EPRM processes. They have strategies for poverty reduction in their country that were prepared in consultation with donor countries and the World Bank. They have well-founded approaches. But development is part of foreign policy. We are all awaiting the new foreign policy. That policy could also send us in new directions. I do not know. I am an official, as you know.
But it is clear that there are good development grounds for focusing on certain countries. We also have other reasons to have ties with developing countries and African countries. The regional approach is important. And maybe in the future, we will not be in the same countries as in the past. Regional programs may be important to Africa's future. The development of ties among countries and the entire continent should be supported. There are various ways of going about it, but we try to focus on certain countries.
Senator Corbin: To use a Canadian political expression, could I say that you basically focus on places where there are winning conditions and you will not attempt the exercise in a country like Togo, where we do not have official diplomatic relations.
Ms. Kostiuk: We do have diplomatic relations.
Senator Corbin: You do not have any ambassadors in Togo?
Ms. Kostiuk: No, that is a question for Ms. Bourcier. However, if there is a crisis, we can respond to crises even if it is not a program focus. There are more extensive regional programs. It depends on the country and the priorities of donor countries.
Ms. Bourcier: With respect to Togo, we do not have a resident ambassador, but we do have diplomatic relations with that country that enabled us to express our profound disappointment and grave concern about the events of the past few days.
Senator Corbin: I was not aware that these witnesses would be appearing before the committee again and that we would have the opportunity to delve into these matters in detail.
The Chair: We are continuing with the same topic next week.
Senator Corbin: Given how vast the topic is, we do not know who to ask and how to ask our questions. So forgive us if we get ahead of ourselves. I have another concern.
Is Canada concerned about fishing operations off the shores of Africa? When I say operations, I mean fishing by foreign countries that are literally stealing Africa's fish resources. It has been going on for years. Have the African countries set up protected areas like Canada announced in 1972 at the Stockholm Conference? Are efforts of this kind being made? A lot of their resources are already being stolen, but in this specific area, is anything being done?
Ms. Kostiuk: I suspect there is no direct programming in that area, but there are multilateral programs supported by Canada that address such things. I could get you some specific information.
Senator Corbin: We must not wait for situations like those in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to occur, and for there to be no fish left, before taking action. Canada has a lot of experience with that. I hope that there are Canadians involved in finding immediate solutions.
Ms. Kostiuk: I will follow up.
[English]
The Chairman: We have all read about the rape of the West African coast by European Union flagships, probably out of Vigo as much as anywhere.
I have one small question, Ms. Kostiuk. Are elements of the Lomé Convention still in force?
Ms. Kostiuk: That is a good question, Mr. Chairman. Certainly, I am aware of its antecedents, but I do not know what has happened to it since the European Union became an entity.
[Translation]
Ms. Bourcier: The Lomé Convention agreements still exist in principle and in application. They still play a role in the negotiation of agreements with the European Union. For example, the European Union agreed, at the Summit of the African Union in 2003 in Mozambique, following discussions with the ACP partners under the Lomé Convention, to redirect part of the funding normally allotted to development to responding to the security challenge and to conflicts. So 200 million were earmarked to support the African Union effort. That is an important dimension, especially in the context of the discussion we are having today. Trade goes on and the African Union's development funding is only committed when there is agreement among members of the European Union, which has grown to 25, and ACP members.
[English]
The Chairman: The Lomé Convention, for the information of people who may not be aware, guaranteed markets in Europe for the products that their former colonies had sold but were about to be excluded. I presume that it was grandfathered into the EU. The Treaty of Rome was in 1957, so it has been an important bit of economic development aid for some time. That is why I asked the question.
Senator Poy: I am trying to understand how CIDA determines the funding. From what you said, Ms. Kostiuk, it is partly based on good behaviour of governments. Is that correct?
When CIDA decides on a certain sum of money for sub-Saharan Africa, how does it divide that among the affected countries? Would that also depend on those coming to CIDA to ask for funding?
Ms. Kostiuk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously, good behaviour is, from the government's perspective, one aspect that all donor countries look at, and that is increasingly the case. The other issue is the capacity of a country to absorb the assistance available. There are some countries where the need may be great, but if you cannot be assured that something effective happens with the money and if you cannot receive an accounting of the money then that creates a different situation.
There are a number of different issues that come into play to determine the allotment of funding. These decisions are taken within a broader kind of policy and political context in terms of where the priorities are and how we think we can make progress on development efforts. The procedure is quite interactive.
Senator Poy: Does CIDA work with the NGOs in these countries or do you have staff in these countries to check individual situations and governments? How does that work?
Ms. Kostiuk: There are people on the ground in the countries where large aid programs exist. That is so in many countries because it is important to see first-hand what is going on.
Senator Poy: Are these international organizations?
Ms. Kostiuk: I am saying that CIDA has field staff in countries where there are significant programs of assistance They work with the African governments and coordinate actively with other donor agencies. They also work with local institutions, which can include NGOs, organizations and regional programs. CIDA and other donor agencies often provide funding for their own organizations to develop links and programs with counterparts in developing countries. I would be more than happy to lay it out in terms of how it works in Africa.
We cannot be everywhere, but it is so important to build the regional strength and the capacity of Africa to operate in its sub-regions and as a whole that it is of a high priority for Canada and for other countries to ensure that this regional capacity is strengthened through programs to that effect.
Ms. Wright: I wanted to add that, in some cases, our support does not go country to country but to the African Union, which Canada, is very keen to support — to the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. We are supporting institutional strength there, so that that African institution can respond to crises in Africa, in the area of peace and security and economically and politically.
It is an important aspect of CIDA funding for good African regional institutions, the African virtual university and a number of others; it is not all country to country.
Senator, I assume that you were asking about how we monitor the money to know whether it is going to the right place. There is a great deal of monitoring and reporting. We have to be careful that we are not putting a huge burden on those institutions and that we coordinate with other donors on the reporting. We are aware of the importance of reporting and monitoring. That occurs on an ongoing basis, based on results that we have written into our agreements with those organizations.
Senator Poy: You mentioned the African Union. Would all the countries in Africa be members of this union?
Ms. Wright: Fifty-three countries are members of the African Union. Only Morocco is not a member of the African Union.
The Chairman: Why is it not a member?
[Translation]
Ms. Chantal Chastenay, Director, Maghreb and Arabian Peninsula Division, Foreign Affairs Canada: When the African Union admitted the Sahraouis, the representatives of western Sahara to the African Union, Morocco withdrew because Morocco considers those territories to be part of Morocco's national territory.
[English]
Senator Poy: Ms. Kostiuk, you talked about the pooling of resources of the donor countries. Is that being done by the 22 donor countries?
Ms. Kostiuk: The pooling is done selectively in support of countries where we have confidence that the government will use the funds well and where we can work with other partners with whom we feel comfortable. For example, in support of education in Mozambique, there is a pooling of funds with the British, the Netherlands and with some of the Scandinavian countries. These countries all expect a certain quality of result and exercise due diligence on behalf of the taxpayers of the countries they represent. It is not happening everywhere, but it certainly is an important tool that provides the recipient government with a lot more flexibility and certainty; and it lets them do more in a particular sector, which can have very great results.
Senator Poy: Are the recipient governments the ones that are looking after the funds?
Ms. Kostiuk: Yes, based on very stringent conditions and agreements. Sometimes these things can take a fair bit of time to set up and to manage. There are very different approaches as to how the funds are actually released. It is specific to the country in which we are operating.
Senator Poy: Ambassador Robert Fowler, you said, lives in Rome. He represents Africa, so why does he live in Rome?
The Chairman: He is ambassador to Italy.
Senator Poy: To Italy? Oh, I see, so he just takes care of Africa, is that right?
Ms. Bourcier: Ambassador Fowler is resident in Rome because he is ambassador to Italy. He is also the Canadian representative at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations — FAO — which is an international institution that has its head office in Rome. He is also the Canadian representative with IFAD — the International Fund for Agricultural Development — which also has its head office in Italy. Obviously, those are important programs for institutions that are very active in Africa.
Ambassador Fowler travels extensively in Africa but is often back in Ottawa. If the committee were interested in meeting with him, obviously, he is someone who has a very good knowledge of Africa that goes back to the years when he was a professor in Rwanda.
Ms. Wright: Ambassador Fowler also represented Minister Goodale. Minister Goodale could not attend the Commission for Africa meeting in Ethiopia in October, and Ambassador Fowler represented Mr. Goodale at that meeting.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, the more I listen to the witnesses, the more I realize that the whole aid effort geared toward Africa, in fact the delivery of that aid, is very well organized. You said that it takes time for things to take their course. Leave us alone and send us money. I am not saying that in a negative way. It is certainly after many attempts, some of them unsuccessful, that you have found a way to coordinate the aid and bring the various players together. That reassures me, because I was under the impression that the aid heading in that direction often did not get where it was supposed to get, i.e., to the people who need it. Am I right?
Ms. Kostiuk: I am going to try to give you an answer. It is not easy. If it were easy, I think that the job would be done and I would be working for finance or public works. Clearly, after 50 years of development, there are some successes, but we have not made as much progress as we expected. There are all kinds of reasons for that. The key message from the Canadian side is that the aid program attempts to achieve results for the benefit of African countries and peoples as well as for Canada. Security and stability are important to Canada. These are works in progress. It is not as though we had all of the answers and everything was running smoothly, but by working together, we will produce results in the coming years. The focus is on poverty reduction and the millennium challenge, it is hard to meet those goals. It is like the bad news about security in Africa. It is the same for development. When everything is going well, it is not very interesting. The problem only gets attention when there are delivery problems, and so on. In general, there are successes.
Senator Robichaud: I did not mean to suggest that the task was an easy one. In spite of everything we see in the news, we are aware that there is still a lot of work to be done. I find it reassuring when you say that there is a lot of cooperation among donor countries and various organizations in the field and that countries receiving aid are willing to cooperate in that effort.
Ms. Kostiuk: That is generally true of the countries where the effort is made. Do not forget that there are a number of fragile countries where it is not possible to achieve sustainable development results. And the international community should look at how we deal with fragile and failed states.
Senator Robichaud: When you say fragile and failed, could you give us some idea of the countries in question?
Ms. Kostiuk: There are lists and commentators that say that Zimbabwe is on shaky ground. It is hard to say. When you look at the problems in Côte d'Ivoire, the international community would prefer a more favorable situation. There is a foreign policy dimension that needs to be added.
Ms. Bourcier: I would add that when you look at a map of Africa, you see that there are three countries that are destabilizing influences: Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, because of their wealth and number of neighbours surrounding them. Instability in these countries affects the other countries. A country like Côte d'Ivoire has an impact on all of western Africa and on countries where CIDA is making efforts to focus its programs in Mali, Senegal and Ghana, three countries very close to Côte d'Ivoire. If Côte d'Ivoire does not stabilize, that could be problematic for those three countries and for the entire region.
The importance of coordination is an essential development among G8 partners and members of the Africa partnership forum. Within that forum, there is the Ulstein group, the Nordic countries with which Canada has a greater affinity in its approaches to cooperation. There are clearly challenges to be tackled. This has been said and constantly repeated by people who are probably much more eloquent than we are. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, comes to mind, who pointed out that in terms of achieving the millennium development goals, the 2015 timeframe for Africa would not be met. He reminded Canadians last March that Canada must continue keeping its commitments. If the entire international community actually respected its commitments instead of merely announcing amounts, if those promises were delivered on, Africa would have a better chance of developing.
Canada announces and delivers. That is what we have done to date.
Senator Robichaud: That was actually my question yesterday. Canada announces and delivers. So the others do not deliver?
[English]
[English]
The Chairman: One cannot but observe that independence in many of the countries we are talking about was more than 40 years ago. When we talk about things getting better, getting better from what? Ghana became independent in about 1957. One would like to think that there is a progression this way, rather than that way.
South Africa was a destabilizing influence in southern Africa — which should have ended after apartheid and the efforts to maintain the regime in former Rhodesia and Angola — southwest Africa, et cetera. That seems to me to have ended. I still do not understand this.
Colonel Thompson, you mentioned Sierra Leone — about which I know a little of its history. Sierra Leone was a very old colony. It was settled a long time ago. What happened? It became independent, but it was not a particularly unstable place when it became independent. All of a sudden, there is a big fiasco in Sierra Leone. What were the dynamics? Did the world just abandon everything — did everyone take a walk? How come Sierra Leone, which was a stable place? I do not think anyone thought much about it. I know the story of Liberia and Sierra Leone, what their reasons to exist were. Can you enlighten me a little bit? How come they became a huge fiasco?
Col. Thompson: First, I cannot enlighten you; I am not a historian. I understand where Sierra Leone is going now and I can tell you where things stand at this moment and where we are planning to go.
I am not sufficiently informed to give you a synopsis of a history lesson of what has gone on in Sierra Leone, other than to say that the principal rebel movement was the Revolutionary United Front, RUF. They destabilized the government of the day, probably over diamonds. We have all heard about the illegal diamonds in Sierra Leone. It was a resource issue that fuelled the conflict, and in the end the Republic of Sierra Leone armed forces were not sufficiently robust to put down the insurgency. It was not a popularly based insurgency, at least to my knowledge, because when it was eventually suppressed with the help of the British, and later UNAMSIL, the RUF never had a real true political constituency and never managed to make any headway in the election that subsequently followed.
The Chairman: I only ask because those kinds of conditions — one looks for conditions if a place is going to fall apart. It is in that context that I am curious about the conditions. The British just walked and could not care less — I guess that is the story.
Col. Thompson: I do not know that they walked, but at the moment they are committed in a major way.
Sierra Leone is a good case study in the present context because you see here an example where a regional economic community, in this case ECOWAS, tried to intervene in the early 1990s unsuccessfully and tried to get it to stand up on its feet. The UN committed to the same mission, again unsuccessfully. Eventually, the U.K. themselves had to intervene militarily, defeat militarily the RUF rebels, and help UNAMSIL get back on its feet, which at its height was almost 19,000 soldiers in that little postage stamp of a country.
In addition to that, what is more important, the U.K. and other parts of the international community have put their backs into Sierra Leone. A good example from a military standpoint is the international military assistance training team which numbers 110, the bulk of whom are British. To show their resolve, the British have built — it sounds like a small thing — a married-quarters patch in Freetown. If you go on a tour in Africa and you are in Freetown, you will see this typical British military married-quarters patch that will house about 30 families. They put those 110 soldiers in there — who are all single for the moment — and when the country is considered stable enough they will slowly withdraw, until they get to the point where they have 30 military officers, or perhaps Canadians and others mixed in with them, who will live there, posted there permanently, with their families to continue to assist Sierra Leone. These projects are not five- or ten-year projects. One must take the long view in all of them, look out 20 years.
It is something that we have learned slowly over time from our development colleagues. It is not something you can do overnight. You cannot reform a military overnight. You cannot build a police force overnight. You cannot establish a judiciary or any of those things without a long and sustained effort.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. I cannot but observe that it sounds like a recolonization of Sierra Leone. They had a police force, they had an army that was functioning, and then they left. Now they are back, doing the same thing they did in the 1950s.
Col. Thompson: It is remarkable. If you go to Sierra Leone or Ghana or any of these countries and you watch their soldiers — as a Canadian and a Commonwealth soldier, I could take over one of their parades. They still drill like they are British soldiers. There is no question that it has that flavour.
However, the Republic of Sierra Leone army, the chief of defence staff, is from Sierra Leone and his deputy is from Sierra Leone Somewhere down in that chain is a British brigadier who is the chief of staff. Further down, there is a Canadian lieutenant-colonel that commands the Freetown garrison. These people are sprinkled throughout and are members of that armed forces. That is the way it has to be done. If you are not rubbing shoulders with people, teaching them how a democratically controlled armed forces is supposed to operate, the penny will not drop. You will end up with — which we have in several African states — armed forces that exist to protect the regime and not the people.
The Chairman: You will not get an argument from me, but as I say it does sound like a recolonization of Sierra Leone.
Ms. Kostiuk: Obviously, when you can dig diamonds up with a shovel, it is a whole different issue than compared to how diamonds are mined in Canada.
If I look at Ms. Bourcier's list of failed or fragile states, I see this: Angola, lots of resources; DRC, lots of natural resources as well; Sudan, oil. The extent to which some of these conflicts are really based on resource issues — and one has to say that they are our partners. There is no market for those diamonds. No one is going to dig them up. It has to be put into that larger context.
I looked briefly at the report from your first session with the academics. Professor Cooper talked about the gatekeeper state and what kind of government a lot of these countries had when they became independent. The capacity was not there. They often were not really rooted. They did not have the capacity to cover the entire country. They governed the capital. They dealt with the rest of the world. Those are the kind of things that people did not notice at the time that were lacking.
The Chairman: I would have thought that in Sierra Leone that might not have been the case, but it is a fair point. Sierra Leone had been around for a while — even Kenya, which is the early part of the 20th century.
I wish to thank our witnesses for a very interesting session.
The committee continued in camera.