THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, December 12, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 11:32 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on Canada’s interests and engagement in Africa; and in camera to consider a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Peter M. Boehm(Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Honourable senators, before we begin, I would like to invite the members of the committee present today to introduce themselves, beginning on my left.
Senator Gerba: Welcome once again to the entire Global Affairs Canada team. Amina Gerba from Quebec.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Senator Robinson: Good morning. Mary Robinson, from Prince Edward Island.
Senator Ravalia: Welcome. Mohamed Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
Senator M. Deacon: Marty Deacon, Ontario. Welcome.
Senator Busson: Hi. I’m Bev Busson, from British Columbia.
Senator Al Zaibak: Mohammad Al Zaibak, Ontario.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Welcome.
The Chair: And I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Peter Boehm. I’m the chair of the committee and a senator from Ontario.
Senators, welcome. I welcome all who may be watching us across the country on ParlVU.
Today, in particular, I want to extend a warm welcome to the Grade 12 students who are sitting behind, studying international affairs, from École secondaire catholique Pierre-Savard in Barrhaven, Ottawa. Thank you for being with us.
I would also like to acknowledge the presence of Ms. Sokmony Kong from the parliament of the Kingdom of Cambodia.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.
The Chair: She is visiting with us today.
[Translation]
Welcome to you all.
[English]
Today, colleagues, we will complete our study, at least in terms of witnesses, on Canada’s interests and engagement in Africa. As you all know, Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen was supposed to appear today as our final witness on this study. However, as I announced at the end of last night’s committee meeting, the minister is no longer able to join us because of illness. He told me he was very much looking forward to this. We had another attempt to meet him and something intervened a few months ago, so we will do without him.
That said, we have a great team here today from Global Affairs Canada. The minister’s very able Deputy Minister Christopher MacLennan has stepped in. He is with Assistant Deputy Minister Cheryl Urban, Director Susan Steffen and Tara Carney, who is the Director for International Humanitarian Assistance.
Welcome back to the committee. I think Ms. Steffen was telling me this could be number six or seven in terms of her appearances, so we’re glad to have her back.
I wish to note that, of course, the committee also invited the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly and the Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development Mary Ng but, unfortunately, these ministers did not make themselves available to appear over the course of the study.
Before you we hear your remarks, Mr. MacLennan, and proceed to questions and answers, I would ask everyone present to please mute notification on your devices so we don’t have any excess noise in the room.
We’re ready to hear your opening remarks, deputy minister, and these will be followed, as usual, by questions from senators and your answers and those of your team.
Mr. MacLennan, you have the floor.
[Translation]
Christopher MacLennan, Deputy Minister of International Development, Global Affairs Canada: Honourable senators, first of all, thank you for the invitation to join you this morning to testify on Canada’s engagement in Africa.
As Deputy Minister of International Development, it is my honour to discuss how Canada and Africa are working together to advance development priorities across the continent.
As you have been hearing, Africa is taking its place in a world where African voices are carrying increasing weight on global issues.
Canada is working together with African partners to address the challenges and opportunities that will determine Africa’s path toward sustainable development.
The African Development Bank forecasted, in May 2024, that 11 of the world’s 20 fastest-growing economies would be African. Such economic growth has the potential to unlock an estimated 3,000 billion U.S. dollars in consumer spending.
Nevertheless, the continent continues to grapple with extreme poverty — which affects nearly a third of all Africans.
[English]
Addressing poverty in many parts of Africa is hindered by inadequate infrastructure, conflict and insecurity and democratic backsliding. In the face of these challenges, Canada remains a committed and reliable trusted partner. Canada has a proud history of achieving development outcomes throughout Africa. The effectiveness of Canada’s development programming in Africa has benefited immeasurably from the deep expertise of Canadian civil society organizations including partners from the African-Canadian diaspora whose continued engagement in Africa will be essential moving forward.
Given the current global context, it is important that Canada and Canadians work to expand our presence on the continent as advocates for our core values of human rights and equality. Thanks to the government’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, Canada is a leader in gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Indeed, Canada has supported over 130 women’s rights organizations in Tunisia, empowering them to advocate for women’s rights and gender equality, as just one example.
In Sierra Leone, the advocacy efforts we supported have contributed to a historic law prohibiting child marriage, which was passed earlier this year.
Moreover, Canada helped improve the capacity of more than 100 women’s rights organizations, LGBTQI+ organizations and networks in Africa to promote human rights and increase women’s participation in leadership and decision making.
[Translation]
As you know, Canada has been examining its engagement on Africa with a view to strengthening our partnerships. To that end, through diplomatic outreach, public consultations, high-level visits and Senate and House committee hearings, the Government of Canada heard from over 600 stakeholders.
We gathered input from 83 small businesses, 39 African countries, 200 civil society organizations, and more than 70 Afro-Canadian diaspora associations.
We have engaged with African leaders, the private sector, and the young and vibrant entrepreneurs and innovators on the continent, and what comes through clearly is that African countries want to work with international partners as peers.
An important milestone in Canada’s reengagement with Africa was Prime Minister Trudeau’s participation at the 33rd African Union Summit, in Ethiopia, in February 2020.
[English]
Since then, this engagement has continued to grow. This past spring, the Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen co-chaired the development policy dialogue in Addis Ababa with my African Union Commission, or AUC, counterpart.
Just over a month ago, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development and Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen welcomed the African Union chairperson and his delegation to Toronto for the second Canada-AUC high-level dialogue. As part of the high-level dialogue, the government made several announcements aimed at reinforcing Canada’s partnerships in Africa.
From a development perspective, the government announced a new trade and development nexus focus and a suite of development programming focused on women’s economic empowerment. A key theme during the high-level dialogue discussions was the importance of Africa’s youth population.
[Translation]
With 60 per cent of its 1.4 billion people under the age of 25, Africa’s youth population presents significant opportunities and challenges for Africa’s future prosperity. In this regard, generating employment opportunities for African youth is critical for sustainable development. A key component of expanding youth employment in Africa requires improved access to technical and vocational education and training.
Canada’s efforts in this area are closely connected with its partnership with the African Union Commission and are fully aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
I welcome the work of this committee and we at Global Affairs Canada are following your deliberations closely as we work with our partners to make progress toward achieving the sustainable development goals in Africa.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Deputy Minister MacLennan.
[English]
Colleagues, I would like to note that Senator Peter Harder of Ontario has joined the meeting.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you to all of you for being here again and for all your support. Health is a critical area for development assistance in Africa, particularly in addressing maternal and child health, nutrition, vaccines and the long-term impacts of climate change on public health systems. Canada has emphasized its commitment to maternal health and child nutrition as part of its Feminist International Assistance Policy.
I have a two-part question. How is Canada working with African partners to strengthen health systems and ensure access to essential services particularly for women and children? Second, in what ways are we supporting Africa’s efforts to address the growing impacts of climate change on public health, such as the spread of vector-borne disease and food insecurity? Thank you.
Mr. MacLennan: Thank you very much for the question. This, as you’re probably keenly aware, is the single largest sector of development assistance spending. This goes back — my estimate would be 15 years in terms of maternal and newborn child health, and Africa has been one of those areas where we focus most.
There are probably two or three main lines of activity. The first one is support of rather sizable global funds to do a significant amount of work in this area. That includes, obviously, the Global Fund to fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria and also Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to address a large number of childhood diseases that are the leading killers of children under five, for example.
Those form a core, and they play a significant role in the fight against the particular causes of maternal mortality and against the particular causes of child mortality. But that is in partnership with the other efforts that we focus on in numerous countries — and Susan Steffen knows the details better than I do — where we put a focus on health system strengthening, working directly with partner countries to identify the areas in which Canada can contribute to either strengthening of a broad national health system, more regional approaches or particular elements, everything from health, human resources to logistics, supply chains and the like. We do that on a regular basis.
I would add that Canada has been a leading proponent of something called the Lusaka Agenda. You can well imagine what it is like for a developing country, particularly a poor African developing country, that is trying to manage its own national health system like any national government would do while at the same time having large multilateral partners doing vertical efforts — whether it be vaccines, particular diseases — and also development partners such as ourselves.
We’ve been leading an agenda, along with a number of other partners, to focus on simplifying these processes to make it easier for developing countries to actually interact with all of the partners that are active in their countries. Lusaka, obviously, is the place where the agreement was reached. We are working very hard to put pressure on the large vertical funds to be more accommodating and to figure out how to better streamline the efforts we have in-country and make it easier for national countries to operate.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator MacDonald: Welcome, everyone. According to Global Affairs Canada, Canada’s efforts in sub-Saharan Africa are focused on 10 countries — Benin, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, South Sudan and Tanzania.
Could you elaborate on the criteria used to select these particular countries and how these choices align with Canada’s broader foreign policy and development priorities?
Cheryl Urban, Assistant Deputy Minister of Africa and Pan-Geographic Affairs, Global Affairs Canada: Yes, thank you. Canada has a presence in a number of countries. In the top 10, we are there in the scale that we are for a combination of reasons. One is based on the level of need and an assessment of the level of need. The other is, in certain places, we have a historic presence. We can build on a lot of our past experience to get good development results for what we’re doing.
Another primary driver is the intersection of what our Canadian development priorities are and in which countries we can have the most effective approach in order to advance those priorities. As the deputy minister mentioned, those are the areas where we can have our best results for investments in education, for women and girls, for gender equality and for health.
Senator MacDonald: I can’t help but notice that all but one of the former colonies are not British colonies but are from other countries. What are other countries doing in terms of development in these former colonial countries?
Mr. MacLennan: Sorry, you do mean countries like France and —
Senator MacDonald: When I look at these 10 countries, with the exception of Tanzania, they were all colonies at one time, but they weren’t British colonies for the most part. The other countries that colonized there, what are they doing?
Mr. MacLennan: I can’t speak in great detail to countries like the U.K., France and Germany, but, for the most part, our donor partners, such as the U.K. and France, have organized their development assistance programs largely around the countries that were parts of their empire in the past. They play a predominant role. They are not limited to those places, but they do play a predominant role.
Some of those have to do with the legacy of experience in the countries, a common language and, quite honestly, common institutions as well. But in my experience, for example, the U.K. and France have all their biggest development assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. They are very active across the continent, but they do have a special focus in those countries. They do tend to play more leadership roles, for example, around the donor tables that exist in the countries when we’re working with them. Yes.
Senator MacDonald: The debt ratios of several African countries and the associated sovereign debt-servicing costs are sources of concern for many. Overall, the public debt of African countries more than doubled between 2010 and 2020.
There are calls for debt relief and restructuring measures. How does Canada plan to contribute to our advocacy for effective and equitable debt relief and restructuring measures that address the root causes of this debt accumulation?
Mr. MacLennan: The G7, the G20 and the Paris Club have all been very seized with the challenge of debt distress across the entire globe, but in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. Following COVID, the G20 created a debt suspension initiative to try to respond immediately, particularly during the COVID pandemic period. The issues go much deeper. There are real problems with the fact that some of the creditor nations in Africa don’t play by the same rules, for example, as Western countries do and Western banks do. That’s become a significant challenge to solving the problem, but it’s definitely on the agenda, particularly of the G20 and the G7.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you to the team for being here today. This morning, I had the pleasure of meeting with an individual, and you may not know him but he goes by the moniker “E.” He has a very successful career in partnering a fund for Africas’ future. He helps with start-ups and businesses. He came to Canada, he came to Waterloo. His feedback on the questions we were asking were so relevant, and we will have a submission, but the one thing he kept saying in the meeting this morning, from Africa, was that Canada needs to know really clearly what they want to be in the world and Africa can help them get there.
There were a number of tangible examples, but one of the things that we talked about is Canada’s relationship with Africa on the brain drain. We accept and educate Africans here, but then they often don’t go back. He said Africa needs those skills there, and it is up to individuals where they want to live if they have choices, but how can we get the education piece in Africa so Africans can apply their knowledge in those areas? Can you respond to that piece today, to be helping in the two-way piece with a follow-up?
Mr. MacLennan: That is a time immemorial problem in development assistance, and it’s worldwide. There is no country that I’m aware of that has ever advanced on the development path without improving the educational outcomes of the population, including specific efforts on specific types of skills that are required at various levels.
Honestly, the educational infrastructure in a lot of the very poorest countries in the world, including in sub-Saharan Africa, don’t have the capabilities of large universities in Europe, Asia and North America. There is inevitably always going to be a tension, which is, quite honestly, very understandable. If you’ve gone to a foreign university and you’ve become a doctor and your options are to return or to stay, often that’s one of the challenges.
Our efforts through development assistance has always been to privilege the types of training that can be undertaking on the ground. We’ve worked with local partners to find ways to do the training. Often it’s not all the way up post-secondary education. It’s the type of training that can take place on the ground with local partners. Sometimes they are very time-sensitive types of training with a view toward building the systems from the ground up.
At the same time, there are huge demand sides that pull people out of various countries. I was in Bangladesh in the spring and I met with their minister of education, and it is an explicit policy of the government to actually educate people so they can leave. For me, that obviously didn’t compute exactly, but different countries have different approaches to solve the multitude of problems they are facing.
Senator M. Deacon: We talked about having a strong trade relationship requires the areas of the trades, mining, medical personnel and a variety of areas. At the same time, we see our government cutting back on student visas, which would, paradoxically, keep those students in their own countries.
I’m wondering if there is a future where Canadian universities can — you talked about the ground level — enroll students virtually to help them to get education while also being able to apply their knowledge directly in their own communities.
Mr. MacLennan: Yes. I’m not an expert in Canadian post-secondary education. Today’s technologies offer a variety of opportunities that didn’t exist in the past in terms of being able to remotely offer the types of technical assistance and other types of training, all the way up to and including what universities in the Canadian context and or community colleges can offer.
I am familiar, for example, with the University of Victoria. I know the University of Victoria is looking at something they call transnational education where they can do things differently. It’s not necessarily creating a separate campus, but they can offer programming in countries. I think they are only just beginning that, but it offers the type of opportunities that might bridge that divide in the future.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: Thank you all for being with us. I am really happy to hear about the consultation process that you described. That was really helpful. One of the main messages you heard was that Africans want to work with Canadians as peers. This is nothing new to you or to anybody who has been working in development for a while, but a lot of people’s mindsets are stuck in the old development paradigm, and that’s a problem. It sounds like, from what you are describing as the way forward and the way of currently operating, that you are well into a different development paradigm from the one that people think about when they think about world development.
We’ve heard a lot about humanitarian crises — we have a person here who works in the humanitarian area — and the growing demand for support in the face of insurrections, conflict, climate change causing migration, et cetera. Basically, huge humanitarian crises on the content. At the same time, we hear the continent wants to move in the way it wants to move into a whole different Africa 2063.
I am curious about Canada’s money and where we’re putting it in terms of the draw on our humanitarian aid, which we do, what we’re being asked to do and what we will do, stepping up on the development side. How are we reconciling those different things that will be asked of us?
Mr. MacLennan: It can appear to be a paradox when you hear of the grave needs on the humanitarian front, and they are grave and they are increasing. That’s a global phenomenon, but it is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa as well. The single largest humanitarian crisis in the world is in sub-Saharan Africa at this moment.
Canada has something called an international assistance envelope, in which we have very dedicated funding that we reserve at the beginning of every year strictly for humanitarian assistance. Then we have an envelope that is strictly for what we call core development. We understand that both happen in the same context. While Canada always has to have sources available for life-saving activities that are more on the humanitarian side — because you have to have that — even in places where humanitarian is your primary tool, there are still development opportunities, sometimes in a different part of the country that has knock-on effects. The long-term development assistance, we kind of have to build those into those places and in those sectors where we foresee that there are long-term gain and long-term results to be had.
It requires us to be nimble sometimes. In a country like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which the eastern part of the country is very much in a humanitarian situation, and other parts as well, we are able to do good development assistance programming as well in different parts of the country to advance on things such as the maternal, newborn and child health question we had earlier and about the importance of responding to that.
It is a tricky balance. One of the things that has come from the consultations is that sub-Saharan Africa and Africa as a whole are not monolithic, not even remotely. Even the individual countries are not monolithic. Even countries in which there has been democratic backsliding, there are opportunities to do things, to sometimes advance human rights, sometimes to respond to humanitarian crises, and we have to make those decisions country by country.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I re-extend our welcome to our witnesses.
On November 7, at the end of a second high-level dialogue between the African Union and Canada in Toronto, ambitious measures were announced as a follow-up to this major dialogue. Are these measures part of the strategy currently in preparation?
When will this strategy be published?
Mr. MacLennan: You’re absolutely right and I thank you for the question.
Ms. Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has announced several measures and actions that we’re going to undertake, and she’s also announced that we’re at the end of our preparations for a strategy. As far as I know, there’s no specific date yet, but it’s coming very soon.
Senator Gerba: Among these measures is the appointment of two special envoys, one for Africa and the other for the Sahel.
Can you tell us how actions will be coordinated between the envoys for Africa and the Sahel?
Ms. Urban: Thank you for your question.
[English]
Those two special envoys will coordinate between themselves. Both will have functions where they are meeting with stakeholders, engaging diplomatically and providing advice to the Government of Canada.
For the special envoy for Africa, they will also have a role to engage with Canadians as well. The special envoy for the Sahel, in particular, will have a role engaging with coordination mechanisms, including the Alliance pour la Sahel and for the Sahel Coalition, and will have a regional focus specific to countries in the region. They will ensure that they don’t overlap but have different orientations.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
I was delighted to hear the discussion around education. Canada has already played a very important role in this sector in Africa. In my home country, at the time, through the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada had built many technical high schools. When the agency merged, all that disappeared.
Are you thinking of bringing this back into the strategy that’s being prepared? Today, when we talk to the witnesses who have appeared here, we understand that there is a major need and that Agenda 2063 gives this sector an important place. Does Canada intend to reactivate this?
Mr. MacLennan: Yes, absolutely; in fact, I can tell you two things very clearly.
Firstly, for Minister Hussen, education and especially vocational training are two extremely important things. He has sent a clear message to the department that this is of paramount importance to him in our approach to helping developing countries. Personally, I see many opportunities where Canada can do more, in fact, particularly in these sectors.
Secondly, we agree that we used to talk about countries that were former colonies and other donors who had their own approach. We know very well that Canada has its own way of doing things in education, and that it is often sought out as an alternative to systems that have been implemented before. So, we know very well that there is a demand. For example, there’s an organization based in Quebec City that offers a Quebec-based approach to vocational training. We know that Canada has expertise and that we also need to make these links.
[English]
Senator Al Zaibak: Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for being with us today.
I understand that our aid to an oil-rich, oil-producing country in Africa, namely Nigeria, reached $277 million last year. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong. I would like to understand how we prioritize our aid to African countries. I don’t know how that figure compares, for example, with our aid to Egypt. I don’t have the data on that.
Could you enlighten us as to how we prioritize our aid to African countries? How do we justify such a significant amount to an oil-rich, oil-producing country while others are in dire need? How do we measure the long-term impact of our aid to the purposes we are located to?
Mr. MacLennan: Thank you very much for the question. I’ll answer more in a very general sense. You posed a general question. I’ll then turn to Ms. Steffen on the specifics of Nigeria.
The first thing that I would say is that for the purposes of humanitarian assistance, we have a rule of thumb that it is strictly based on need. We don’t question what the income level of the country is, as long as it’s eligible for official development assistance. Then if there is a disaster that strikes in a country like Turkey, for example, we would provide humanitarian assistance, as we did during the terrible earthquakes that took place and killed 20,000 people. So that’s a pure needs basis and that’s how we make decisions.
When it comes to our development assistance, we are always looking at what the level of poverty is in these countries. That is the core thing because that’s the primary purpose of our development assistance, particularly in large amounts. We do development assistance in middle-income countries, as they’re called, countries such as many Caribbean countries, but there it tends to be much smaller envelopes and it tends to be things such as technical assistance and smaller amounts. Where there are large populations of extreme poor, then that’s where you’re going to see really large envelopes.
The amount of money you’re seeing is a combination of two things. One is a bilateral program where we will create an envelope of dedicated programming run from Global Affairs Canada, but the numbers you see also include the numbers that are attributed to that country through our multilateral contributions, so to the United Nations, the World Bank and the like. They get apportioned according to how much we give to these countries. Often in those circumstances, what you’ll see are countries with really large populations, such as Nigeria, get a larger share simply because of their population size. I think there may have been an anomaly as well.
Susan Steffen, Director General, West Africa and Maghreb Bureau, Global Affairs Canada: The year where the number was $277 million was an anomalous year. It had to do with some payments that were shifted from one year to another. Generally, for Nigeria, the figure is about half of that, which is still a significant amount of money.
For the bilateral program, which is what most people think of when they think of a development program, it’s more in the range of $15 million to $20 million a year. If you start looking at that in terms of levels of poverty, it really isn’t a very large program at all.
Senator Harder: Thank you to our witnesses. I have two quick questions.
A couple of witnesses spoke to us about how remittances are increasingly important in the African continent.
I’m wondering if you can comment on how individual countries are organizing to benefit in the development sense from the remittances. If you look at Asia, for example, there have been for the last 30 years very deliberate remittance structures. Is that part of the evolution of development assistance in Africa?
Mr. MacLennan: Yes and no. Remittances have been a real challenge for a very long period of time not because there is a problem with them but it’s the nature of what they are.
We had a question earlier about the brain drain. There is a reason why some countries are quite happy to export smart, talented, educated people and it is because of remittances. The remittances often flow back in small envelopes directly to family members and things like that. So the value of it is immense. If you look at the numbers, it’s more than total official development assistance globally is returned to developing countries through remittances, but it’s a macroeconomic impact that these are happening as opposed to a targeted use of remittances for the purposes of advancing development.
Senator Harder: It is collectivized in a certain way. I wonder whether any institutions are being developed?
Mr. MacLennan: Yes, maybe. I’ll let Ms. Steffen answer.
Ms. Steffen: It’s an extremely timely question because in the middle of our African Union Commission high-level dialogue, we had included a group called the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate, or CIDO, which is a group within the African Union Commission that is looking at diaspora populations and civil society populations and youth. They have a big remit. Within their African diaspora approach, they are looking at creating an African Union Commission-led mechanism for pooling of remittances.
I asked the question, normally people are pretty keen to give their remittances to their village and build a school and that sort of thing. They said in the African context, there was enough concern about whether or not the money was getting to where they wanted it to get to, they wanted a trusted interlocutor and the African Union Commission could play that role. We’ll see, because it’s at the continental level, whether or not it’s something people will buy into, but I thought it was a really interesting response to the point you raised that remittances are significant but not necessarily targeted, as the deputy minister was saying.
Senator Harder: The long-time practice of donor coordination countrywide, are we developing collectively donor coordination on African Union level and the regional economic organizational level to ensure that the kind of collective prioritization is reinforced?
Mr. MacLennan: I’ll let Ms. Urban and Ms. Steffen answer. There may be mechanisms that I’m unfamiliar with.
Where you’ll often see it take place is at tables like the G7, to be perfectly frank. The G7 represents the vast majority of official development assistance. This past year the Italian presidency led something called the Mattei initiative for Africa. That’s probably the most senior, the most organized place where that type of donor coordination takes place, and Africa is often on the agenda of the G7 and has been for years.
More broadly speaking, I’m not aware of mechanisms, but I could be wrong.
Ms. Urban: I’ll add that as part of the G7 process there is an Africa directors track that takes place and there are discussions throughout the year, so that’s one level of coordination.
Ms. Steffen: Senator, you asked specifically about the African Union. I would say two things. One is that the African Union Commission and African Union are focused very much on their own member states, which I think is a really positive thing to be looking at. They have a number of programs and flagship programs, and then they ask non-member states and member states to contribute to those particular programs. Within each of those programs, they do have a degree of coordination.
In terms of contributors to the African Union Commission itself, Canada is one of the only Western donors that contribute directly to the African Union Commission to the degree that we do. We just renewed our $20 million contribution to them, half of which was in education.
Senator Busson: You may have touched on this when you were answering my colleagues’ questions, but I’m interested in a specific aspect of your answer. Minister Hussen announced $35 million funding in support of women’s empowerment initiatives on the African continent in November of this year. According to Global Affairs Canada’s news release, this funding was announced alongside members of the African diaspora in Edmonton. A decision was made to underscore “. . . Canada’s dedication to fostering deeper relationships with African communities at home and abroad.”
I’m interested to what extent do the partnerships with African communities in Canada have on influencing Canada’s development policy decisions for Africa?
Mr. MacLennan: Ms. Urban, you’ve been more closely associated with that.
Ms. Urban: Over the past couple of years, we’ve been undertaking a number of consultations to help to support us in the process of thinking through a strategy for engagement with Africa. As part of that, we spoke to more than 600 stakeholders, but a number of those were African diaspora communities and members that are in Canada.
At times we put a portal up on the internet and received a number of responses. One of the things that was announced on November 7 by the ministers was the creation of a new diaspora engagement mechanism that we will develop, and that will be a part of how we engage in the future. The idea is we recognize over the past couple of years, having done that engagement, that it was beneficial for us to hear those views to help inform how we think about our engagement on the continent. So we’re looking for a way to make that a little bit more sustained.
Senator Busson: I’m assuming from your answer that’s a new direction or initiative?
Ms. Urban: We haven’t had a mechanism before so this would be a new mechanism that we would be employing.
Senator Busson: Thank you.
Senator Woo: Good afternoon. We met with some heads of mission yesterday. We heard some somewhat unorthodox ideas they have for how they can work with Canada. Infrastructure came up a lot, transportation, electricity and so on. Maybe we can do something, maybe we can’t.
One particular idea that came up was how we could get our superclusters, our global innovation hubs, the four of them, to work with African counterparts. Is there any way we can fit that into our development programming? It’s not conventional, I understand, but how do we go about even responding to an idea like that?
Mr. MacLennan: That’s an interesting idea. I would say two things. First, on the question of infrastructure, this is probably the development issue that gets discussed at leaders’ tables. There’s a broader question of access to development financing and then an access to commercial financing for the purposes of infrastructure, whether it be for the electrification grids, for ports to enable developing countries to connect into global supply chains. But it’s a difficult conversation because it works at a counterpoint to the debt distress levels that we’re also seeing. It’s a very fraught kind of conversation to have.
Most Western countries’ investments of that level are private-sector investments, not public-sector investments. There are ways in which the government can facilitate things and we try to do that.
I have not heard the superclusters suggestion before. Normally, we in the department and our diplomatic network will always be kind of a door open to saying if we can connect you with Canadian partners, whether they be private sector, the tertiary sectors, we’re happy to make those connections and see if there is a discussion that can take place. But there is also some really interesting work that’s being done, for example, by the International Development Research Centre in the area of artificial intelligence in Africa in partnership with a few other donors. So there are ways of doing it and all ideas are pretty much welcome. They don’t always work out, but they’re all welcome.
Senator Woo: You know I’ve worked in Asia a lot and one of the shifts in thinking across the government as Asia was developing very quickly was that the development question for the Canadian government was not just a question for, at the time, the development folks at Global Affairs, it was a question for Finance Canada, Agriculture Canada and Innovation Canada and on and on you go.
Is there a bit of that thinking at all in the other government departments today where Africa is not just something for you guys to worry about, but does Finance Canada have a thinking about new financial instruments or banking? Does Transport Canada think about how Africa can fit into a transportation frame and so on?
Mr. MacLennan: I would say that what you’re hitting upon is the reason why the government is working on a strategy right now. In my remarks, I noted what the African Development Bank Group’s notes were in terms of where economic growth is taking place. There are many reasons to be very bullish on the future of Africa.
The reality is that in Asia, Asia got there faster. As a result, the opportunities for organizations like Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Natural Resources Canada, they emerged earlier, but what we do find, for example, in much of our programming in Asia and in the Americas is that there is a huge demand for technical assistance, the type of technical assistance that Canada has to offer.
What we’re now feeling is in sub-Saharan Africa, that is where we are hearing it as well, that, yes, there are places where it is still about important development assistance spending that is required to break through some of the really big intractable problems that are poverty related. At the same time, partners on the ground are looking for more advanced discussions, and they want to connect with broader groups other than Global Affairs Canada, as nice as we are.
The Chair: I don’t think anyone will disagree on that last point.
I will ask a question as well, and Senator Woo touched on it. We had an interesting session yesterday with four heads of mission from Africa based here in Ottawa. Some of us had an informal meeting as well with the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.
Mr. MacLennan, I’ve asked this question of you before, I think, but one of the things that came out is that with Canada as the chair of the G7 — and all of the work that that includes, beyond hosting a summit — and with South Africa taking on the G20 role that there should be some crosswalks in terms of the work.
Now, you know, as a former Sherpa to the G20 and a Sous-Sherpa on the G7 side, that these are two different organisms, and the membership is so wide that you do not necessarily have — shall we say — like-minded countries all at the table.
How realistic is that to come up with something coordinated to give a better focus on Africa?
Mr. MacLennan: Well, obviously, this year is a very particular year. The last three G20 presidencies have been led by developing countries — Indonesia, India and then Brazil — and now we have South Africa. That will complete the tour, by the way. South Africa is the final G20 country to host a G20 summit.
My experience at the table of the G20 is that having four developing countries in a row set the table for all of the conversations — whether it be about agriculture or whether it be about climate — that it’s being set from the perspective of the needs of developing countries and emerging markets. The G20 discussion around those issues has been fundamentally different than, for example, my first two years as Sherpa under the Saudi Arabian presidency and the Italian.
There, clearly, are opportunities for linkages with the South African agenda. My understanding is that our Sherpa to the G20 today is in South Africa for the very first meeting. We’ll see what the South Africans are planning over the course of their agenda.
One of the challenges is that the timelines of the two summit processes don’t align very well. The G20 is much longer and, actually, better paced, to be perfectly frank; whereas, the G7 is always crammed into the first six months of the year. That will make it a challenge, but we are keenly aware that the opportunities are pretty significant, particularly building on the work of last year’s G7 work in terms of Africa.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: I was looking for dollars and cents.
Where are we now in terms of the recommendations for development assistance and for humanitarian assistance going forward? What kind of quantum are we looking at and are we looking at growth in both of these?
Mr. MacLennan: Do you mean in Africa or the overall —
Senator Coyle: Yes, for Africa?
Mr. MacLennan: What I would say is that for the overall, the budget will be coming up soon, and it will indicate what the levels are for fiscal year 2025-26.
Within that, we make choices within the year. On the humanitarian side, as I said, our starting point is always what does the analysis from the United Nations tell us in terms of where all the humanitarian needs are, and we try to be as responsive as we can but in a way that treats all situations roughly equally.
My assumption is that you are probably going to see humanitarian levels roughly the same this coming year as last year, maybe with a slight increase because of the fact that the government made a decision in Budget 2024 to increase the overall size of our humanitarian envelope. That means the overall increase is there.
In terms of our current funding for sub-Saharan Africa, it will be probably very close to what it is this year.
Senator Coyle: One thing we haven’t talked about much is your money leverages money from Canadians. Do you have a sense of what that looks like and what the trend lines are in terms of Canadian participation financially along with the Canadian government toward Africa, in particular?
Mr. MacLennan: I don’t have a number in that respect. We’re obviously keenly aware of the fact that there are a great many Canadian civil society organizations, or CSOs, who work primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. They fundraise on their own, and we contribute to their efforts quite a bit.
I have to admit, I don’t have a clear sense of what a leveraged number might be in that sense, and it is difficult to tell as well.
Senator Coyle: Is it difficult to get because you do matched funding?
Mr. MacLennan: Sometimes we do. In the humanitarian space, we will often do a dedicated matching fund for a particular crisis, and we did a couple of those this year. We recently finished one for West Bank and Gaza, for example. I think that’s the only one we did this year — and Lebanon; that’s right.
But on the development assistance side, we don’t normally do matching funds, per se. Instead, what we do is we finance individual projects.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: We recently heard a witness, Mr. Nicolas Moyer, assert that “Canada needs Africa more than Africa needs Canada”. Do you agree with this statement? If so, what have you undertaken, as part of this strategy we’re waiting for, to show that Canada needs Africa?
Mr. MacLennan: I must confess that I didn’t necessarily think of that formulation. However, one thing is very clear: we are currently living in a world where geopolitical and economic changes are following a very worrying trend for Canada and many other countries.
With my experience in international affairs, I think there has never been a more important time when relations with other regions, peoples and countries are so important to security in general and to the economic security of Canadians.
Africa offers a great deal to Canada, but also poses certain risks for our country, such as not being present, not being part of the changes on the continent and not helping certain countries in particular.
When it comes to the Sahel, the risks, whether it’s terrorism or whatever, can certainly have consequences for Canada and for the security of Canadians. So, we can’t just look at this issue from a North American perspective.
Senator Gerba: Thank you. Yesterday, we heard some very interesting testimonials from our heads of mission in Canada. The one I particularly remember was that of the High Commissioner of Cameroon to Canada. He explained that China’s success in Africa was due to the fact that it asked for no consideration other than financial to carry out projects on the continent.
He added that this approach was right in line with what African countries want, which is to be treated as equals and not to receive any more lessons. How is Canada implementing an approach based on a win-win partnership with this continent of 54 countries?
Mr. MacLennan: We don’t entirely agree with China’s approach to Africa. In my view, China’s approach is not necessarily in the best interests of African countries. We agree that a partnership with African countries should always take into account the interests of the African people, and I don’t think that’s always the case.
[English]
The Chair: We have come to the end of our time, but I just want to say that it was very good to have this panel as our last set of witnesses. You have been with us for a number of times — at least some of you have more than others — and this is helping us in terms of trying to navigate what we would like to recommend in our report given that the government has made a number of announcements and that the committee in the other place has also produced a report. So there is a lot going on with respect to Africa.
Deputy Minister MacLennan, thank you so much for so ably stepping into the shoes of your minister at short notice. Assistant Deputy Minister Cheryl Urban, thank you for being here. Ms. Susan Steffen and Ms. Tara Carney, thank you for being here today. It is much appreciated by this committee.
(The committee continued in camera.)