THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 10, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 4:16 p.m. [ET] to study foreign relations and international trade generally and to examine and report on Canada’s interests and engagement in Africa.
Senator Peter M. Boehm (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, my name is Peter Boehm. I’m a senator from Ontario and the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Before we begin, I would like the committee members participating in today’s meeting to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
[English]
Senator Ravalia: Welcome. It’s nice to see you both again. My name is Mohamed Ravalia, and I represent Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo from British Columbia.
[English]
Senator Harder: Peter Harder from Ontario.
Senator Boniface: Senator Gwen Boniface from Ontario.
The Chair: We will — I think — soon be joined by other senators. We have been paying some respects to a departed colleague. They will join. I want to welcome everyone here and, of course, those from across the country who may be watching us today on SenVu. Colleagues, for our first panel, and under our general order of reference, we are meeting again on the very dire and serious situation in Haiti. To provide an update, we are pleased to welcome, from Global Affairs Canada, Sylvie Bédard, Director General, Central America & Caribbean; and Sébastien Beaulieu, Director General and Chief Security Officer, Security and Emergency Management.
Welcome and thank you for being with us. Our Ambassador to Haiti, André François Giroux, was also invited to appear today and wanted to, but was unable due to operational pressures and the situation on the ground in Port-au-Prince and, in fact, across the country.
[Translation]
Before we hear your remarks and proceed to questions and answers, I would like to ask the committee members and witnesses in the room to refrain from leaning in too closely to their microphone or removing their earpiece while doing so.
This will prevent any sound feedback that could negatively affect the committee staff and other people in the room wearing earpieces and certainly our interpreters.
[English]
I would like to acknowledge that Senator Deacon of Ontario and Senator Richards of New Brunswick have just joined us. We are now ready to hear your opening remarks, which will be followed by questions from the senators.
Ms. Bédard, the floor is yours.
[Translation]
Sylvie Bédard, Director General, Central America and Caribbean, Global Affairs Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll provide an overview of the situation in Haiti, Canada’s response to the situation and our recent consular operations. On February 29, the situation deteriorated significantly with gang attacks on critical infrastructure. This led to the closure of the international airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The rise in violence has had a major impact on the humanitarian situation. These attacks have forced health care facilities and schools to close, and humanitarian stocks have been looted.
On March 11, under the auspices of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, Haiti’s main political players agreed to set up a transitional government. Discussions were held to establish the standards of the transitional presidential council responsible for appointing an acting prime minister and a cabinet.
We welcome the establishment of the presidential council. We look forward to seeing it announced in Haiti’s official gazette in the near future.
Canada is ready to work with Haitian stakeholders, the Caribbean Community and international partners to support the work of the transitional government in a transparent manner, so that it can restore order and security and work towards organizing fair and credible elections for the people of Haiti.
[English]
Canada continues with its comprehensive approach in Haiti. We strongly believe that the future of Haiti depends on having a stable and democratically elected government. Prime Minister Trudeau participated virtually in the March 11 meeting organized by the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, as well as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations and myself. Engagement by Minister Joly has also taken place to support the political dialogue and the upcoming Multinational Security Support mission.
The deployment of that mission is critical to support the Haitian National Police, or HNP, to restore security. Canada is providing $80.5 million to its funding, and we encourage more international partners to contribute.
We are also closely working with our partners to provide the HNP with the necessary resources to stabilize the situation until the mission arrives, to be fully engaged over the period when the mission is active in Haiti and to maintain law and order after the mission departs.
We are also concerned with the well-being of affected populations. Over the last two years, Canada provided over $380 million in all forms of international assistance to Haiti.
Global Affairs Canada is currently finalizing its humanitarian funding allocations in response to the 2024 Global Appeals. At the moment, we can continue to count on a number of multilateral Canadian and Haitian partners that are still operating and reaching the beneficiaries. But the longer the crisis lasts and worsens, the more we will have to focus our programming on humanitarian aid and stabilization in an increasingly complex environment.
[Translation]
The security situation on the ground remains highly volatile. Since October 2022, we have been advising Canadians to avoid all travel to Haiti. In recent weeks, we have helped over 350 Canadians, permanent residents and their eligible family members to leave the country. As we speak, with an additional flight, we will have helped over 450 people to leave Haiti by chartered plane or helicopter.
I would like to acknowledge the tremendous interdepartmental cooperation that helped achieve these results, along with the pivotal contribution of the Haitian community in Canada and the many friends of Haiti in Canada.
[English]
We have issued ministerial statements; offered media technical briefings; updated social media; provided daily media updates; and sent many Registration of Canadians Abroad, or ROCA, messages to registered individuals with Global Affairs Canada in Haiti. Our Emergency Watch and Response Centre has operated 24-7 since the beginning of this crisis, maintaining regular communication with our clients.
In recent weeks, numerous surge responders have supported the Emergency Watch and Response Centre. Standing Rapid Deployment Team members have been dispatched to bolster our response capacity in the region. Our embassy in Port-au-Prince remains open and consular services continue to be offered. We want to acknowledge the support of the authorities in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in our assisted departure efforts.
This concludes my remarks. I would like to thank the committee members for their attention and engagement on this important issue.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Bédard.
[English]
I’d like to acknowledge that Senator Mary Coyle from Nova Scotia has also joined the meeting.
Colleagues, we will go to questions. As per usual, you will have four minutes in the first round. This, of course, includes both your question and the answer. I hope you can keep your preliminary remarks very brief so we can get as much information as we can through the answers of our witnesses.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much for that helpful information.
Could you give us an update with respect to timelines on the multinational security force, which is due to be Kenyan-led? When can we anticipate them being on the ground?
Given the fact that we are dealing with what appears to be a state of anarchy, to what extent do we expect a degree of success from this type of force?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: We’re working hard with the international partners to plan the deployment of the Kenyan-led and backed security support mission to Haiti. One of Kenya’s key requirements for the deployment of this mission is the formal establishment of a new transitional government in Haiti. As I said in my opening remarks, the formal establishment of this new governance entity in Haiti’s official gazette is expected any day now.
Under the terms of the agreement reached with the help of the international community on March 11, each new member of the presidential council must back the deployment of the security support mission. This is one of the criteria set out in the agreement reached on March 11.
The planning of this Kenyan mission is ongoing, even while we wait for the governance conditions to be met. A great deal of work is currently under way and continues to be carried out. Obviously, the deteriorating security situation on the ground means that many challenges remain, particularly when it comes to securing the perimeter around Port-au-Prince airport. This strategic infrastructure ensures that the security support mission’s personnel can enter the country.
Much work remains to be done. The planning is ongoing. Canada is involved in all these discussions. As I also said, on February 22, we announced a substantial contribution of $80.5 million to this mission.
[English]
Senator Ravalia: If I can change wheels a little, do we have a count on the number of Canadians and permanent residents still in Haiti who have opted not to come back to Canada? Are we able to guarantee their security to any extent?
Sébastien Beaulieu, Director General and Chief Security Officer, Security and Emergency Management, Global Affairs Canada: Thank you for the question. At Global Affairs Canada, we have a system whereby Canadians can register while abroad and give information on their location. Over 3,000 people have registered as part of this system. It’s difficult to keep an exact number of Canadians present in Haiti, as they don’t necessarily unregister once they leave, and there are many people who register out of interest for what is going on in Haiti, even though they are not necessarily located in Haiti, or not a Canadian citizen.
Nonetheless, that gives us a ballpark figure.
We have been in touch with hundreds of Canadians and permanent residents over the past few weeks. Our volume of calls and exchanges is in the thousands. We have over 25 surge responders picking up the phone, responding to emails and responding to text messages 24-7 in all official languages, including also helping in Creole in these dire circumstances.
In terms of our emergency response per se, and more specifically in terms of assisted departures, Mr. Chair, you were alluding to — at the beginning of the intervention — our ambassador being under some operational pressures. That’s an understatement in the sense that just today he oversaw the departure from Haiti of over 100 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families, which brings the tally of Canadians for whom we supported departures to over 450. Thank you.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: Thank you both for being with us. I apologize for being late. A colleague is retiring, and we were celebrating him.
I have two questions. I’ll start with the fairly simple one, picking up on your last point, Mr. Beaulieu — and welcome back. I’ve been extremely impressed with Global Affairs Canada. I — and, I know, others among us — have been working hard to try to help get some people out of Haiti, particularly children.
Mr. Philemon Leroux is someone I will particularly mention who is on that flight — and has been on those flights — and is coming back. He is remarkable. Congratulations on the incredible team and leadership that is there in Global Affairs Canada.
Today’s flight was added after the last flight, which was supposed to be Sunday. I’m intimately aware of all these things, as we have been scrambling every time trying to get certain people on these flights. I understand that there is a possibility that this will not be the last flight. Is there anything you could tell us about future plans for those who are still left behind, and who are waiting to be reunified, in particular, with parents here in Canada? Could you speak about that?
Mr. Beaulieu: I had the pleasure of connecting with Mr. Leroux at the airport in Dorval on Sunday evening at midnight, and being handed over one of these newly adopted children to bring them to their new family, so there’s certainly a lot of emotion in the air and a lot of anxiety over this situation in Haiti.
There are currently no scheduled flights beyond today’s operation, but all Canadians and permanent residents who were ready with travel documents have been assisted. We continue to answer, as I was mentioning, the Emergency Watch and Response Centre. We will continue to take calls and take note of the situation and the needs of Canadians in Haiti.
On the issue of adoptions specifically, we are in touch with a number of stakeholders — not only in the federal government, but also the provincial level and with Haitian authorities — and we’re doing everything possible to reunite them with their families.
Senator Coyle: Including transportation?
Mr. Beaulieu: Including transportation.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
Mr. Beaulieu: There will be close to a dozen happy new additions to Canadian families as of this evening.
Senator Coyle: Great. The one I’m dealing with is not new to that family, and you probably know about it.
Okay, second question — do I have time?
The Chair: Yes, you have about a minute.
Senator Coyle: Perfect. Thank you for your generosity. We need to be generous about Haiti.
Regarding the next steps, I’m glad you were in the meetings that were happening in the Caribbean. We talk a lot about the security situation, which is unbelievable, in Port-au-Prince. Outside of Port-au-Prince — from what I understand from my Haitian colleagues whom I still work with — things are functioning, and, even though the government is not functioning, civil society is functioning quite well in certain parts of the country.
When we talk about elections and next steps, and we talk about our next steps in partnership with Haiti, I’m curious about two things: our engagement with Haitian civil society, and also our engagement beyond Port-au-Prince.
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: It’s good to see civil society working in Haiti’s current fragile situation. It reminds us of the importance of working with a wide range of civil society representatives in Haiti and in our diplomacy in general. Canada has been doing this since the start of this latest crisis and since the assassination of President Moïse, even before we developed our response to the current situation.
We took the time to meet with a wide range of representatives of civil society, religious organizations, the academic sector and groups of women, girls and young people to find out what’s actually happening. We wanted to see how they viewed the future of their country and what type of support the international community, and specifically Canada, could provide to help Haiti get back on track and also to find lasting solutions over time.
We’re still in contact with these various groups, both in Port-au-Prince and in departments in other parts of Haiti. We’re continuing to support them and listen to them as much as possible. Our participation in the political dialogue process is one way of doing this. Once the new presidential council has been formally established, we’ll continue to support this new political governance entity in the next stages. We want to guide the country towards fair and equitable elections within a specific time frame.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Bédard.
[English]
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much for joining us again. My question is around how Canada sees itself dealing with the specifics of the gang issues. As you know, it’s basically anarchy; I think one of my colleagues said that. It seems to me that one of the challenges of taking an international mission in there — we had one for many, many years — is trying to stabilize and, at the same time, create some long-term stability.
I understand that the political situation has to be settled first. According to what I’ve been reading, that’s where the emphasis is. But it perplexes me in terms of how the gang activity can be addressed and what role Canada can play in that. What part of our Canadian policy will be able to facilitate that?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: When we consulted a wide range of Haitians to develop Canada’s response in Haiti, the different comments and observations clearly showed the need for an integrated approach to address the various aspects of the current crisis. I’m referring to both the political aspect and the gang situation. As many of you know, there have been various criminal groups in Haiti for over 30 years. These criminal groups are part of the country’s political and economic landscape and are funded by Haiti’s political and economic elites. As a result, Canada implemented an autonomous sanctions regime to send a clear message to these elites that corruption and the funding of criminal groups in Haiti would no longer be tolerated.
For the same reason, the United Nations also established a sanctions regime. It’s the second major pillar of Canada’s response in Haiti, along with political dialogue, development assistance, humanitarian aid and, of course, our support for security through our funding of the Kenyan-led security support mission and through capacity building for the Haitian National Police.
[English]
Senator Boniface: What have we committed to now? I know that some police training is occurring close by, but not in Haiti. How many do we have doing that? Given the capacity of the Haitian National Police right now, what do you see as Canada’s engagement in terms of that type of development?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: In terms of Canada’s training of the Haitian National Police, two complementary areas of action are currently in place.
The first is Canada’s coordinating role with the international partners to ensure more integrated efforts to build the capacity of the Haitian National Police. This coordinating group was set up by Canada a year ago now. It helps to integrate and optimize offers of support from various international partners in terms of equipment or training for the Haitian National Police. We’re doing this at the request of the Haitian National Police. It couldn’t manage the various offers made by the international community, since it must handle the urgent nature of its own security situation. We’re heavily involved in this coordinating role.
With the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we’re also directly contributing to the training efforts currently under way in Jamaica until the situation in Haiti makes it possible for the RCMP to provide this training in Haiti.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Bédard.
[English]
Senator M. Deacon: To follow up with the police area and concern, the numbers are dwindling. They are low ratios; there is no question about that.
With the Haitian government recently stuck in chaotic transition, who are the remaining police following for their orders? Who is making the decisions and the orders, or has that been a mystery or in flux as well?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: Haitian police officers are currently following the instructions of the director general of the Haitian National Police. During the transition period between Prime Minister Henry’s government and the new governance entity, the Haitian National Police is still the de facto government responsible for political governance in Haiti. This is done on the ground by Prime Minister Boisvert, the acting prime minister.
As soon as the new governance entity is formally established in Haiti’s official gazette — any day now — it will implement a cabinet and a national security council in charge of coordinating the country’s security efforts. The director general of the Haitian National Police will report to this entity.
[English]
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you. I wanted to look at the area of transitional government, with the negotiations and what it is going to look like. Actors in Haiti who have been excluded from these talks have been demanding a seat at the table — some of the most powerful gang leaders that we could ever imagine. In your opinion, is it inevitable that, in time, some of these men will be included in these negotiations?
I know this is, perhaps, not a perfect solution and it might be an unwelcome one, but even the U.S. eventually sat down with the Taliban. I wonder where that part of it fits in this. If we are going to get to that place anyway, why not start now in the hopes that we can perhaps head off violence that will continue to escalate and ensue?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: Before and during the political dialogue meeting held in Kingston, Jamaica, on March 11, this question was part of the discussions. All the political parties and groups represented at this meeting and in these discussions agreed that Haitian criminal groups shouldn’t be part of this new political governance entity in Haiti.
In addition, in the March 11 agreement, they agreed to include a criterion for the selection of representatives of the various political groups. The representatives mustn’t have a criminal record and mustn’t be subject to the United Nations sanctions regime. They wanted to send a clear message on this issue. I would just like to add that the number of political groups represented in this Haitian governance agreement represents a wide range of Haitian political parties.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Harder: Thank you to our witnesses. Thank you for the work that you are doing.
Haiti is an issue that keeps coming around. I am aware of four rounds that I had some acquaintance with.
What have we learned from the past, and what is new this time? I don’t mean to imply that the problems are all on Haiti’s side. Surely, some of this is that we were wrong in whatever intervention or durable solution we found.
Could you share with us your perspectives on those two questions, with some candour, I hope?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: That’s why, after the assassination of President Moïse, we took the time to meet with and listen to a wide range of players representing a number of sectors of Haitian society. We wanted to really see what hadn’t worked in the past and how things could be done differently. We then adopted this integrated approach to deal with corruption and gang funding through sanctions. We wanted to promote a political dialogue that comes from the Haitians, that suits the Haitians and that isn’t imposed by the international community. We also wanted to support Haitian institutions in their efforts to reform the justice sector or strengthen security institutions, but on a permanent basis.
One example is the United Nations security support mission preparing for deployment.
This mission, in terms of planning, isn’t meant to take the place of the Haitian National Police, but to assist the police strategically. This will enable the Haitian National Police to remain on the front line both during the deployment and afterwards. One constant in Canada’s response in Haiti is our ongoing investment in international aid all over the country. This aid isn’t just concentrated in Port-au-Prince or the Artibonite department, but is spread throughout the country. It shows our commitment to Haiti and the Haitian people.
[English]
Senator Harder: My only follow-up would be that we reference a lot of the money that we have invested or spent in Haiti. I wouldn’t mind a little bit more on what we have achieved with that investment. Is it just substantive living? It appears to me that it has not been an investment for growth or stability. It has just been coping.
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: Mr. Chair, our investment...
The Chair: You have only 30 seconds. Go ahead.
Ms. Bédard: Let me give you a concrete example of development programming that also contributes to the current humanitarian aid situation. Canada works a great deal with a partner that I’m sure you value as much as we do. This partner is the World Food Programme. We have been working with them for a number of years to provide meals every day to a number of Haitian children who attend school. For many of the children, it’s their only daily meal. Right now, with schools closed, a number of families are living in refugee camps for internally displaced people. The World Food Programme provides these meals in camps for displaced people. In January alone, 510,000 meals were provided for children.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Woo: I was struck by Senator Coyle’s observation that outside of Port-au-Prince, things are functioning reasonably well.
I wonder if you can help me understand what that means in terms of understanding the nature of this conflict in Haiti.
What I am trying to get at is this: Why are the gangs not interested in spilling out into the non-urban areas? Are the spoils there not worth spilling out into?
Is this really about elite power, politics and a power grab within the city only? I would like a bit more of an analytical understanding of what is happening, and whether there is a risk of the mayhem and the anarchy spreading into the rural areas.
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: It’s a difficult question, which I’ll try to answer. Given the long-standing ties between criminal groups in Haiti and the political and economic elites, who have become used to working with gangs to secure their areas, gangs have been more prevalent in Port-au-Prince and the adjoining department called Artibonite for a number of years now.
Since the political agreement reached on March 11, we have seen a change in the behaviour of these criminal groups. They have teamed up for the first time in a long time to join forces to destabilize Port-au-Prince and Artibonite. They know that, once the new governance entity has been formally established in Haiti’s official gazette, a condition will be fulfilled for the deployment and arrival of the Kenyan-led security support mission.
Right now, the various gangs are clearly working closely together on this destabilization effort, with a focus on the centre of power, Port-au-Prince. The longer we wait and the longer the situation drags on, the greater the risk that these destabilization efforts will spread to other departments of Haiti and increasingly damage the economic development centres still operating throughout the country.
[English]
Senator Woo: Briefly, what is happening on the border with the Dominican Republic?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: The situation on the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is tense right now. The two countries no longer have any common negotiating partners to work with on shared concerns or solutions to border-related problems. Haiti has no elected officials and basically no government in place. This makes discussions between the two countries difficult and creates a great deal of tension at the border right now.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: Thank you to the witnesses.
To date, the Government of Canada has imposed economic sanctions on 28 Haitian citizens under the Special Economic Measures (Haiti) Regulations. These sanctions were imposed because these individuals are believed to be helping to maintain instability and violence in Haiti. I am curious about who these notorious individuals are. What is the effectiveness and outcome of economic sanctions in deterring individuals from perpetuating instability and violence in Haiti?
Are there any measures in place to mitigate any adverse humanitarian consequences resulting from the economic sanctions that are being imposed in Haiti?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: As I explained earlier, the use of sanctions against corrupt elites and gang members is part of an integrated approach. It’s not a tool to be used on its own. Certainly, it’s a tool that has done a lot to change the behaviour of elites on the ground. There’s no doubt that this change in behaviour, this change in culture, will take years. The message — as confirmed by the Haitian stakeholders we speak to — is that a change in behaviour in Haiti is indeed being observed as a result of the sanctions. The panel of experts set up under the UN’s sanctions regime noted that in its October report. Political representatives are being very careful not to take up old habits and associate with criminal groups to advance their interests.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: I would like to touch upon what Senator Harder started to touch upon with regard to the money that is going there and being allocated. Considering the widespread presence of criminal gangs in Haiti, and the possibility of those funds being misused, what actions has the Canadian government taken to guarantee that its financial aid to Haiti — such as the $80.5 million allocated for the Multinational Security Support mission and other contributions — is not inadvertently benefiting or fuelling the activities of criminal organizations? How do we know it’s not being bled off anywhere?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: That’s an important issue, and it’s central to how we think about and plan our Haiti programming. Canada’s programming is carried out in partnership with people on the ground. A total of $100 million was announced in March 2023 to support the Haitian National Police. Many of those people partner with the UN, which has well-established mechanisms in place to ensure due diligence. Efforts were made to ensure that those mechanisms were firmly in place and could provide us with information on equipment and assistance deliveries to the Haitian National Police.
If the situation changes, particularly in the current environment, and it becomes impossible to secure the delivery of equipment and assistance to the Haitian National Police, those deliveries have to be halted until the necessary assurances are in place.
[English]
Senator Richards: Thank you for being here today. The trouble is the rule of law. We work under the rule of law, and they don’t work under the rule of law. That’s been a problem in every revolution or semi-revolution in the last 4,000 years, so that’s a problem.
As cynical as that sounds, the gangs don’t work within the rules that we propose, and are used by political entities that don’t work in those rules either for their own private benefit. How in the world can Canada ever deal with this until it transforms the very form of government in Haiti? I’m not sure it can. I know that sounds cynical, but stabilization has never been in place before the age of Papa Doc down in Haiti, and we poured billions of dollars into this. I wonder if this is another Band-Aid solution that will not be working in three or four years.
I know that sounds cynical, but we have been through this a dozen times.
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: You’re right. The situation is challenging and extremely complex. That is why we made sure that we engaged in consultation and that we continue to consult a range of Haitian stakeholders in an effort to identify effective solutions in the immediate and long terms.
I may not have talked about this enough, but there’s no doubt that reforming the justice sector and restoring the rule of law are an integral part of the response set out by not just Canada, but also the international community. It will take time, and there is much to do. It isn’t a matter of the international community imposing solutions on Haiti. It’s a matter of providing long-term support throughout the process.
The hope is that this different approach, which was put in place in recent years and months, will make a difference. We are already seeing results at the micro level in terms of development aid, humanitarian assistance and support for the Haitian National Police, not to mention the establishment of the new governance body representing a diverse range of political groups in Haiti. Progress is slow, but it’s happening.
[English]
Senator Richards: Thank you.
The Chair: I would like to ask a question as well. It’s sparked by some of the questions that my colleagues asked. Like some of them, I’ve been involved in Haiti and Haitian issues for quite some time. I recall 25 years ago — when I was our ambassador to the Organization of American States — I spent a lot of time with my Haitian colleague. Why? It’s because Canada is the only other French-speaking country in this hemisphere. With that comes some responsibility. We feel it in the policy options taken by successive governments in this country, and certainly they feel it in Washington. Colleagues who were on last year’s trip to Washington will recall when we met with the then-chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations — asking Canada to do more because we simply weren’t doing enough.
We have the UN support mission. That’s coming. We’re working with Kenya. There is the training in Jamaica. We have been there for every earthquake, every hurricane, every famine and every coup d’état, with police training and with peacekeepers — with everything — and now this is a totally different situation, but we’re still there. Other countries may have evacuated.
My question for Mr. Beaulieu is related to duty of care. We’re down to, I guess, what one would term a “skeleton staff.” The immigration files are being processed out of Mexico. There is still a consular presence, but we have staff in harm’s way there. Some may require counselling and other forms of support, and, of course, they are in physical danger. I would be very interested in hearing from you as to what measures Global Affairs Canada is taking.
Mr. Beaulieu: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question. I’ll answer as candidly as possible, given some security considerations. First, in terms of our posture currently, a few weeks ago, with the closure of the airport and the increase in gang activity, we took the decision to draw down our staff by almost three quarters. Today, it’s down to the ambassador, plus a few key political staff and security staff. Over the past few days, we have bolstered that capacity with some surge responders to assist with the operation, but you will also have seen in the media that the Canadian Armed Forces is also supporting our presence in Port-au-Prince.
In addition to all the other security measures and mitigation measures that we have, we have strict movement protocols. We have consolidated our staff quarters. We have robust private security firms with quick reaction forces, and we also have close protection for the movement of our staff.
We continue to monitor the situation very closely from a threat assessment perspective, both with our own resources and also working with our partners between capitals and on the ground. It’s important, as the minister has commented recently, for us to be present in Port-au-Prince, but present in a sustainable and safe way — and in a way that ensures that we continue to support our staff who are doing great work on the ground, and supported with some rotations of staff in Santo Domingo.
We reduced our staff, but we kept them very close, and there is, sort of, relief for the staff who are in Port-au-Prince to be able to continue being on the ground — not only to track the political process, but also to continue to provide assistance to Canadians, including documentation for travel.
The Chair: Are you also looking at counselling for those who may have found this a lot to bear?
Mr. Beaulieu: We have all internal measures of employee assistance, in addition to the leadership of our ambassador and our geographic colleagues, and the support and ongoing touch base with our senior management who are checking in regularly.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much to both of you again. I commend the people on the ground — Ambassador Giroux and the consular staff, Anita Da Silva and others — who are putting in Herculean efforts there.
Senator Harder asked a question that I was going to ask, but I want to get back to this point: I’ve not been involved in Haiti as long as our chair and our deputy chair, but I have been since the big earthquake in 2010. Post-earthquake, all the talk was about “build back better.” It wasn’t just build the infrastructure back better. It was build the country back better — the social fabric, and everything about the country.
You have answered, to a certain extent, what we have learned and what we are going to do differently this time. But I would like to give you more of a chance to talk a bit about the key lessons given where we are today. How do you think Canada will interact with Haiti differently once we’re through this crisis?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: I would say the key lesson is to be more attentive to a diverse range of Haitian voices when it comes to how Haitians see the future of their country and how support from the international community can really be of use to them. That is definitely a major lesson we are trying to apply to absolutely everything we are doing right now.
The other thing would be better integration of the international community’s contribution. Earlier we talked about the coordinating role Canada agreed to take on, in terms of coordinating assistance to the Haitian National Police. First, they didn’t have time to respond to the various offers they were getting.
Second, the proposals being made by international partners lacked consistency. I would say those are the two key lessons. The third thing we learned, and I referred to this earlier, is not to provide international aid and political support without addressing the underlying problem plaguing the country, corruption. In a nutshell, those are the three main lessons.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: I want to go back to something I raised in the past. For as long as I can remember, we have been pouring money and support into Haiti, but the progenitor of this perpetual disaster is France, not Canada. I’m curious: How much money is France putting on the table? We’re putting $80 million. What is France’s involvement in trying to find a solution to this never‑ending problematic area of the world?
[Translation]
Ms. Bédard: I can’t speak for France. We may get some new announcements today as part of the French dignitaries’ official visit to Canada. I can say, however, that France is an important partner of Canada’s in the international response in Haiti. It’s involved in the group that coordinates support for the Haitian National Police, helping to build capacity. France is also contributing to the Kenyan-led security support mission. Just before January, France announced that it would be providing an initial amount of 3 million euros, and a second announcement could follow. France is definitely an active partner in the various discussions with the international community in Haiti.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Unfortunately, we are out of time. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank Sylvie Bédard, Director General, Central America and Caribbean, and Sébastien Beaulieu, Director General and Chief Security Officer, Security and Emergency Management.
The work you and your teams do for Canada and Haiti is appreciated. Thank you.
[English]
Colleagues, for our second panel, we will shift to our study on Canada’s interests and engagement in Africa. Today, I’m very pleased to welcome, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — otherwise known as FAO — Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General; Lauren Phillips, Deputy Director, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division; and Nicholas Sitko, Senior Economist, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division.
Thank you for being with us. As is our usual procedure in this committee, we’re now ready to hear your opening remarks. These will be followed by questions from the senators, to which you would hopefully provide answers.
Ms. Bechdol, the floor is yours. Welcome.
Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Thank you so very much, senator. Distinguished members of the Senate, thank you for the opportunity to brief you today on this timely and important report entitled The unjust climate: Measuring the impacts of climate change on the rural poor, women and youth. It is nice to see some familiar faces, but, for those of you whom we have not had the opportunity to meet with, we look forward to not only this briefing but also, hopefully, additional and future meetings and collaborations with many of you.
On behalf of FAO, I want to express our appreciation for the continued support from the Government of Canada. In fact, we have been here in Ottawa from Rome for the last two days for informal consultations with representatives of the Canadian government, along with representatives of the United States who have come from Washington. It has been very important for us to talk very candidly and frankly together about how we work to achieve better trajectories in terms of global food security.
Canada has not only been a global champion of our work at that level, but has also very much been important to our work in promoting gender equality and addressing climate change, so we are confident that this new report will support your continued great work in this area as well.
Just last year, we had a dedicated session with some of you and your colleagues to present another report entitled The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems, which brought evidence on gender gaps in global food and agriculture. Now this report entitled The unjust climate: Measuring the impacts of climate change on the rural poor, women and youth will provide data for you on the impact that climate change has on the poor, on women and on youth. It puts front and centre those who bear the brunt of the climate crisis which, most often, are those who contribute the least to things like greenhouse gas emissions.
You mentioned specifically the focus on Africa. This is where the impacts are particularly dramatic, given the number of people who are dependent on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods.
I saw this first-hand just a few weeks ago on a trip to Somalia — a place being affected by repeated drought followed by floods followed by drought and historic floods again.
With this, I would like to go ahead and turn to my colleagues. As I mentioned, they are the authors of this outstanding piece of work. There is no doubt that I think you will appreciate the efforts and detail of this important content. Without further ado, let me turn it over to Mr. Sitko who will dive deeper into the findings of the report.
Nicholas Sitko, Senior Economist, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Thank you very much, distinguished members of the Senate.
It’s my pleasure today to present some of the key findings of the report. First, I would like to begin with a bit of background on the report so you can understand what is in it. This report took socio-economic survey data from 24 low-income and middle-income countries covering five regions of the world. We merged this in space and time, so we combined it together with satellite data covering a period of 70 years, which allowed us to then disentangle how climate extremes — extreme weather events like heat stress, droughts and floods — as well as long-term changes in temperature, are differentially affecting people based on their age, wealth and gender.
I’m going to begin with some of the high-level results, and then I will focus in particular on sub-Saharan Africa. The high-level results cover all 24 countries. For sub-Saharan Africa, the data comes from 12 countries. In those countries, we have much more specific data on individual farmers and the plots or agricultural systems they are managing.
With the high-level results, we have found that extreme weather events are having a significantly larger impact on people who are living in poverty, rural women and older rural populations.
We found that in an average year, heat stress, floods and droughts are causing these populations to lose between 3% and 8% of their income relative to, let’s say, non-vulnerable populations. To put that in context, if we were to aggregate those individual experiences across all low-income and middle-income countries, we’re talking about income losses in U.S. dollars of between $16 billion and $37 billion every year for these vulnerable populations.
It’s not just extreme weather events. It’s also long-term changes in temperature. For example, we found that a 1 degree Celsius increase in average temperature is reducing the overall income of female-headed rural households by 34%. These are very dramatic results, and those are driven primarily by losses in their agricultural income.
Now shifting to sub-Saharan Africa, we found that exposure to these extreme weather events is causing rural women — farmers — to actually adapt their agricultural systems in ways that are similar to or sometimes even better than men. They are adopting new practices to adapt to and cope with these events.
They are also working significantly more in response to extreme weather events. On average, rural women are working in sub-Saharan Africa about an hour more per week than rural men in response to extreme weather events. That is coming on top of an already disproportionate burden of work that these women are experiencing.
Despite all this work, and despite the increased labour and adoption of adaptive practices, rural women’s farming systems are still much more sensitive to extreme weather events than men’s farming systems. For example, for every day of extreme heat that a farmer experiences, rural women tend to lose 3% more of the total value of their production than men. That is just one day in a typical year. We experience about six of those days.
Another important finding is the impact that these events are having on child labour. We found that in an average year, children aged 10 to 14 are increasing their work burden in response to climate events by almost an hour per week — 50 minutes more. This is coming at the expense of schooling and free time.
Despite the magnitude of these challenges, the fact remains that funding and climate financing to support adaptation and reduce vulnerabilities is quite low. Only 1.7% of tracked climate financing in 2018 targeted small-scale farmers. That’s US$10 billion. That is obviously a fraction of the number of losses that these groups are experiencing, much less the costs that they need to incur to adapt.
We looked at the climate policies of the 24 countries that we considered, such as the nationally determined contribution documents and the national adaptation plans. Of the 4,000 climate actions proposed in those documents, only 6% mentioned women, 2% mentioned youth and 1% mentioned people living in poverty. There is obviously a significant funding and policy gap around this issue.
The report highlights many key strategies to address some of these challenges. I want to briefly highlight five regarding what we need to do in terms of integrated approaches to address these vulnerabilities: First, we need to address disparities in resource access that these populations face, including access to land, credit and markets. Second, we need to deliver climate services and agricultural extension services that are catered to the needs of more vulnerable populations through participatory methodologies, for example. Third, we need to invest in reducing risks and compensate for losses, for example, through the use of social protection systems that can be scaled up and out in response to crises. Fourth, we need to invest in rural, non-farm economies and off-farm jobs. This is critical, particularly for young people. This includes investments in education and soft skills, opening up new markets for small enterprises and credit and financing. And, finally, we need to address some of the discriminatory norms and constraints that these populations sometimes face — moving beyond material issues — and work toward gender transformative approaches that bring together women and men to discuss how gendered norms may influence women’s vulnerability.
Coming up with local solutions is a promising approach. By taking a more inclusive approach to climate actions and investments, we’re able to chart a more sustainable and climate-resilient future. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you for your comments. We will begin the question round.
Colleagues, you know how we work — four minutes each. Please keep your prefaces and questions as short and concise as you can.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for the document. It is a very concise set of data that will help us.
The question that I am thinking about today is something around what might be disparity. I want to ask about the smallholder farms that are in Africa and the larger effects of climate change. I read that despite producing up to 80% of the food in sub-Saharan Africa, only 1.7% of global climate financing goes to projects with smallholder farms. What is the disconnect there? Is there a logistical problem in that it is easier or safer to finance large, grand projects? Is there lobbying at play here with money going toward those with the most influence? I’m curious.
Mr. Sitko, please answer first, and then anyone else can jump in.
Mr. Sitko: Thank you. That’s a great political economy question in a lot of ways.
I lived in Zambia for nine years, working with small-scale farmers. It was clear that most of the public spending went to larger farmers in the form of subsidies, price supports for surplus maize production and input subsidies. That took up about 90% of the agricultural budget.
To qualify for price supports, you need to produce a surplus. Many small-scale farmers produce small surpluses. They sell some and they buy some from the markets, so they were automatically excluded from that policy.
The input subsidies had very strong land holding size restrictions on who could access it. You had to have more than 2.5 hectares. That, again, excluded almost 70% of the rural population. There was a real political economy question around who was a real farmer. Then, the question was this: Who could produce a larger surplus? There was a strong farm lobby that did that.
It is more about changing the mindset around what qualifies as a farmer. How can we actually reposition public policy to not simply support those who are already in a position to capture benefits, and enable smaller farmers to transition toward a more surplus-oriented production? FAO does a lot of work around that.
Senator M. Deacon: Before anyone else comments on that, with that in mind, and with your response thus far — and the climate issues making farming increasingly unreliable — are we going to lose some of these smallholder farms?
Lauren Phillips, Deputy Director, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Let me add to what Mr. Sitko said about domestic financing and international financing.
Already, the climate funds are quite biased toward mitigation activities rather than adaptation activities. The large majority of financing is going to mitigation. In part, it is because it’s easier to find big projects to finance.
Financing agriculture is considered to be very risky. Adaptation requires individual-level changes at the household level. When you are asking large financiers to invest in small farms, you are asking them to take on a lot of transaction costs. There are agencies, like our sister agency in Rome, which put a lot of focus on reaching smallholder farmers with climate adaptation, but it is not the bulk of the financing.
To your second question, unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of other options for people despite the challenging circumstances that you mentioned were highlighted in the report.
One of the findings of the report is that the poor are becoming even more dependent on agricultural income despite declining returns, because they do not have alternatives. The exception in the findings is that young people do find ways to generate off‑farm income because they are more willing to leave rural areas or find other businesses to be involved in. Overall, the poor and women, in particular, may not have options of exit so they continue despite the challenges and losses that they are suffering in agriculture.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you to all of you, and your team, for being here.
I was born and raised in Zimbabwe. I have family in Zambia and Malawi, so I’m very aware of the incredible work that you do, and I thank you for that.
Could you provide me some further details on challenges that you face in maintaining that delicate equilibrium between providing emergency aid and facilitating long-term agricultural development in conflict areas? Particularly in the context of the world that we are currently living in, do you feel that donor fatigue is becoming a factor in the work that you are doing?
Ms. Bechdol: I think that I will take this one. I oversee our resource mobilization work and our Office of Emergencies and Resilience. We just covered this topic quite in depth earlier today in some of our consultations.
FAO, as you know very well from your comments, is a specialized technical agency of the United Nations. Increasingly, as we find the challenging situations in so many countries around the world — whether it is climate-driven, conflict, man-made circumstances, wars and other things — we are finding ourselves being pulled more and more into these collective emergency and humanitarian responses.
Our role in these responses is to still stay true to our technical agricultural background and resilience focus. This is a complementary approach to our colleagues — like the World Food Programme; UNICEF; the World Health Organization, or WHO; the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA; and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR — who typically are seen as the humanitarian responders. FAO’s important role is to come alongside and to provide people in rural villages, communities and farmers with seeds, fertilizers, animal vaccines and animal nutrition that are critical to not only be able to provide food and nutrition to themselves and their regions or their areas, but also to sustain livelihoods. We know that is very important.
You asked about donor fatigue. Increasingly, I think we, and many others, are watching dynamics around the world with different political circumstances. There is a change in mindset in some of our key donor partner countries around a view toward multilateralism versus a more nationalistic or inward-looking view.
We are all competing, unfortunately, for the same dollars. This creates an interesting dynamic in many ways with some of our partner agencies. For FAO, we have increased our voluntary contributions in this emergency response space, while still making sure that we are delivering on what is ultimately our technical mandate, and providing development resilience-building in countries. Our two biggest programs right now are Afghanistan and Somalia. In Afghanistan, we have a $500‑million to $600-million program with 420 people. Somalia is about $300 million to $400 million with 500 people. Increasingly, we are seeing that these are the places where our programming is becoming most relevant and growing in size.
Senator Coyle: There is so much that I would love to ask you. Thank you for being with us and for this work. I am not surprised, but I am very saddened that this question of who is a “real” farmer is still kicking around. It has been kicking around since the 1960s in the developing world. I used to do gender games on who is the farmer back in the 1980s. Changing the mindset takes a while, I guess.
I have not had a chance to read this in detail, but I am very interested in two things. First, are you doing work in Africa, or anywhere, on the issue of agriculture as a solution to climate, like carbon sequestration and other things like that? That is my first question.
My second question is about these off-farm livelihood opportunities. You are an agriculture and food organization. How does that fit? Is it all about income patching, where people are combining incomes and that is the reality, so in order to keep the farm going, you also need to keep the other income going? I am just curious about that.
Mr. Sitko: I will start on the first question on the agricultural side. Agriculture is a unique sector where there are opportunities for these two objectives to be achieved — development, adaptation and sequestration. That tends to be the core of the bundle of farm practices that are being promoted in almost all of our programs — practices that are focusing much more on soil health, on building up soil carbon, on reducing residue burning and on reducing tillage of soil. All of those things have benefits in introducing trees into farm systems. They have benefits in terms of sequestration and productivity benefits.
One of the biggest challenges is that they take time. These are nature-based solutions. Nature, by its very nature, takes time. This is where a lot of innovation is happening in FAO in terms of how to enable a farmer — whose short-term interest is in their immediate food security needs — to adopt practices that are to the benefit of the public, as well as to their long-term benefit in terms of adapting to climate change and increasing productivity. Bundling different types of interventions and integrating social protection support, along with training and other skills building for off-farm work, is one of these kinds of approaches that we are using.
Ms. Phillips: On the livelihood question — which is also an interesting question — the report that we published last year, which Ms. Bechdol mentioned in her introduction, noted that 66% of the women who work in sub-Saharan Africa work in agri-food systems, with a declining number working in agriculture on the farm and an increasing number, particularly in West Africa, working off the farm, including in processing, marketing and sales of food — post-harvest work.
We stay true to our mandate working on agri-food systems, but there is a lot of space in the value chain. In fact, rural economies in Africa, and elsewhere in low-income and middle-income countries, are still being driven by the opportunity to move from the production side into the rest of the value chain in agri-food systems. Mr. Sitko mentioned earlier that we want people to build resilient livelihoods, and that may mean having a variety of different income sources so that they can weather shocks when those shocks arrive. Because they are arriving with greater frequency, it is important that families have alternative sources of income so that they are not forced to migrate in unsafe conditions or pursue other negative coping strategies.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much.
Senator Harder: Thank you for being here, and thank you for your work.
I have three quick questions. On the study, you are in five regions — are they all African regions? How many of those are in Africa, and are there regional differences that are worth noting?
The second question is on gender norms. How are the client countries reacting to this? Gender norms are not going to be dealt with by the donor countries.
Third, to what extent are you able to benefit from social capital? We now have philanthropy very much engaged on innovation in the agriculture space, dealing with poverty reduction and climate action. Are you in touch with them? I know that sector is meeting in New York next week, I believe. How do you feed off each other?
Mr. Sitko: The five regions are a couple of Eastern European countries, Middle Eastern countries, Latin American countries, African countries and Asian countries. Within Africa, we’re very well covered. That is where half of the countries are located. We have a large population in West Africa, Southern Africa and Eastern Africa. We have data challenges in terms of doing regional-level estimates. When you start cutting up the data by population groups and exposure to stresses, et cetera, you end up with smaller sample sizes and it becomes harder to come up with results, but we are working on that.
Ms. Phillips: Thank you for the question on gender norms. A bit to Senator Coyle’s point, gender norms are very slow to change, but they are at the heart of what is driving gender inequality in agri-food systems. We are having positive conversations with member states of FAO, with variations, of course. Most countries are very invested in ensuring that women have opportunities for economic empowerment in agri-food systems because they know that a majority of women are working in this sector and are making a huge contribution to the economy in this sector.
Addressing norms requires a sensitive approach, where you work with local authorities and with men, women, boys and girls in order to discuss ways that you can resolve conflicts or point out advantages to addressing unfair care burdens, for example, and how that might be holding the potential of the household back, or what you can do to encourage nutrition to be equally treated between women, men, boys and girls. We do have a number of approaches that we, and other agencies, use to try to adapt to local context, but to also discuss and transform some of the norms that are most concerning.
Ms. Bechdol: Let me come in on that last question around social capital. We still, admittedly, have a fairly traditional donor base within the organization, with most of our funding — voluntary, extra-budgetary — coming from traditional member country donors, like Canada, the U.S., the EU and many others. The climate funds — the Green Climate Fund, or GCF, and the Global Environment Fund, or GEF, as vertical climate funds — are now about 17% or 18% of our extra-budgetary resources. Increasingly, we are also finding very significant amounts of programmatic work with the international financial institutions and the multilateral development banks, specifically the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank.
When it comes to new areas of opportunity, just a few years ago, FAO completed, with member endorsement, one of its first ever forward-leaning private sector engagement strategies. This is not a comfort space for FAO or, frankly, many in the UN system. In fact, there has been a lot of distrust and skepticism about even the private sector sharing the same kinds of mindsets, values and motivations to actually take on a number of these kinds of challenges.
Increasingly, we are finding more opportunities, not necessarily for financing from the private sector specifically as corporate entities, but rather to steer them — as FAO — to places where they can make their own investments at a country level. Where I think we have opportunities for some more direct funding and resource mobilization is actually with a number of foundations. To your point about social impact and maybe impact investing, obviously many of us in the UN are closely connected to organizations like the Gates Foundation, but also increasingly the Mastercard Foundation, the IKEA Foundation and the Rockefellers. Many of these have shared priorities around supporting smallholder farmers, the focus on Africa or the focus on gender.
This is increasingly an area where we are trying to find the alignment and learn from one another. We do speak very different languages. The UN system and the private sector often don’t always communicate in the same way, so we are trying to work on that. I think there is great opportunity for them to really have an impact.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Bechdol.
Senator Woo: Good evening. Thank you for being here. The problem of smallholder farm poverties is a long-standing one. In some ways, it’s endemic to the nature of the business. I have a broader question about economic development and the transition away from agriculture as a major source of economic output for the population. This is not just off-farm income, which is one slice of addressing the problem, but it’s the bigger macroeconomic question: Can we get people to move from lower-productivity areas to higher-productivity areas which may also, at the same time, be more resilient, perhaps, to extreme climate and weather events?
Can you talk about how this is going in Africa in the countries that you are working on?
Mr. Sitko: I can begin. You are right; there has been very little progress, at least in sub-Saharan Africa, with respect to significant transitions of smallholder farmers out of smallholder, low-productivity agriculture into higher-wage, more productive sources of employment. Like you say, there are multiple elements to this.
On the one hand, you have the issue of a lack of dynamism in the non-farm economy. We’re in a post-industrialization era, right? We’re in an era where the potential for large-scale manufacturing to pull millions of people off the farm into wage employment is diminishing in many ways. You have those kinds of structural challenges, alongside the fact that you have a lot of very small-scale agriculture that is now more exposed to extremes in terms of price volatility from global markets as well as extremes in their local environmental context.
In regard to the principal driver of creating off-farm jobs in, say, Southeast Asia — where you had high-productivity agriculture creating surplus income and demand for more products that created investment in local industries that pulled people off farms — those dynamics are much more challenging in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
The fact remains that 80% of the population is somehow reliant on agriculture to a certain extent, right? You can’t discount agriculture as still one of the key drivers of this economic transition that we would all like to see. But it must be complemented with investments outside of the agricultural sector to create that dynamism. It means better fiscal policy and trade policy. It means all of those things — that will be other levers outside of the agricultural sector — to kick-start the agricultural sector.
Senator Woo: Do you have any success stories in sub-Saharan Africa?
Ms. Phillips: One example of a successful rural transformation, strongly driven by a unified government strategy, has been in Ethiopia. There have been major improvements in terms of reduction of poverty and improvements in food security, despite the fact that there are still very large challenges in that country. Having a, sort of, strategic set of policies around agriculture and other sectors — to Mr. Sitko’s point about industrial transformation, et cetera — and having government organized with specific objectives that they are trying to meet has been a very successful strategy in that country.
To add to Mr. Sitko’s point, one of the problems that is still occurring in sub-Saharan Africa is that plot sizes are getting smaller. There has not been a consolidation of land. Most of the successful transformations have occurred when farm size increased, because surplus labour moved off the farm. But in Africa, and in parts of South Asia as well, farm sizes are getting smaller and there haven’t been significant enough productivity gains without the expansion of land. On-farm productivity gains have been low compared to regions like East Asia, where there were massive increases in productivity during the previous century.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Boniface: Thank you for being here. I’m wondering if your report speaks at all about the relationship between climate change and how it is impacting the agricultural sector, particularly in Africa, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Does it cover any of those? If so, what were the findings on it?
Mr. Sitko: It does not specifically. It says that essentially, without dealing with this challenge, there is no way that we’re going to be able to make the progress that we need to achieve major reductions in poverty and hunger.
The fact remains that if these events keep chipping away at the economic prospects of a large share of the population who are already the most vulnerable — without significant improvements in that — these populations will be left behind, and that is contrary to the Sustainable Development Goals. The underlying message is that without tackling this challenge, we’re never going to be able to achieve that objective.
Senator Boniface: From the international community’s support and funding that you see, are there good success stories of countries who are assisting in a way that you are able to measure and see the point, or is it mostly a multilateral approach? I am just wondering if there is anyone really leading the way on this issue.
Mr. Sitko: I think Ethiopia keeps coming back. I realize that there are a lot of social challenges and civil war. What they did around climate adaptation in particular is they integrated their major social protection program — it is one of the largest in Africa — with climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives. As a result, they incentivized the creation of soil and water conservation structures — agroforestry and those kinds of things — that helped to create economic opportunities, create public goods and reduce erosion. It was that integration of agricultural policy with social policy focused on jobs, but also focused on larger public goods, that helped to create that. They have seen success, but they also have other challenges.
Senator Boniface: I want to come at it from the other side in terms of donor countries and foundations or whoever. Are you able to see the type of emphasis around how the funding is done, how it is directed and what the rules are around whatever parameters they give you that are allowing you to deal with the very significant issues that countries like this face?
Ms. Bechdol: Yes, we are finding more and more that we are developing relationships with many of our key donors, where primarily what we try to do is identify a particular need at the country level. You have to remember that FAO has 140-plus country offices. Many times, it is our directors or our teams who are working with ministries of agriculture, environment, climate, water, et cetera, and we identify alongside the national government that there is a priority. Then, we navigate that need with colleagues here in Ottawa, in Brussels, in Washington or in Tokyo — in these other places.
More important than the structure of the funding is actually getting to a place, more and more, where we’re able to demonstrate impact. The outcomes are one of the most important things that we are trying to really focus on with key partners. There is great attention being placed on our work together, and donors are being quite supportive.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: There were 24 countries surveyed here. I’m curious: Why were these 24 countries chosen? What were the criteria used to choose these countries? I noticed there are countries in Africa, like Botswana, that are not on this list. Botswana is a landlocked country; it seems fairly well run compared to a lot of African countries. How much of this is really due to climate issues, and how much is related to the way these countries are administered and run?
Mr. Sitko: Thank you for that question. It is a diversity of countries. The selection of the countries was simply down to data availability. There needed to be a recent nationally representative survey. It needed to have information on incomes of people — agriculture and non-agriculture income. It needed to have information on the location of the people that were interviewed. We needed to know where they were so we could connect that socio-economic information with the satellite information that we had. And they had to be done since 2010. Those were the criteria.
These were the only countries that met all of those criteria, and that are also part of an effort by our statistics department to harmonize these national surveys. Our statistics department had been working to create information, aggregating the income data in similar ways across all these countries so that they would be comparable. We had to work with what we had.
It’s true that many of these countries are fragile, but there is quite a bit of diversity there. We have Vietnam, Mongolia, Ecuador and Peru. There is quite a bit of diversity. The African countries were selected because almost all of them are part of the World Bank effort called the Living Standards Measurement Study surveys, which is a very standardized set of survey data that really get at the agricultural questions. But they do exclude countries like Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
Senator MacDonald: I have a quick question: I’m thinking about your homeland, or Rhodesia where you were born. Rhodesia used to be the breadbasket of Africa. I’m just curious: What sort of information will we get out of Rhodesia today when it comes to these factors?
Mr. Sitko: I don’t know what sort of survey data is being conducted in Zimbabwe now. Regarding Zambia, they have very up-to-date survey data. But for Zimbabwe, I’m not sure what they are doing. They certainly previously had very good farm service. I’m not sure where they are now.
The Chair: Thank you. We’ll move into round two in a moment, but I have a question. It goes back to earlier points made by colleagues and, I think, your responses too. It really relates to the fatigue on the part of donors. You have fixed contributors — of course, there are voluntary contributions as well — and, as everyone knows, we’re in a global polycrisis environment. There are probably more famines than ever before, and some of them are, of course, the result of climate change.
Ms. Phillips, in your remarks, you referred to your sister agency. To be clear, I’m imagining you were referring to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD, also headquartered in Rome, which has something of a different mandate. But since you’re located side by side, and since you both work in the agricultural area, there is the possibility for perhaps better coordination — so too with a number of the climate financing mechanisms that have been established in various ways, and where the country governments that you’re working with might not necessarily know who to turn to, how to do it and the like, which then suggests a component of technical assistance to help also in these countries in order for them to actually apply for grants and other forms of contributions.
I would like to know if there is a greater amount of interplay and discussion between the various specialized agencies, of course, being cognizant of the financial pressures that you’re under.
Ms. Phillips: Thank you. I should have referenced the International Fund for Agricultural Development. I think, in our specific work area, there have been two very successful ways in which the two institutions are working together that come immediately to mind. The first is on gender, in fact. There are two joint programs where IFAD, the World Food Programme and FAO are working together. The largest is a field-based program that is called the Joint Programme on Accelerating Progress Towards Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment, and it’s using the different mandates of the three institutions to have complementary approaches to work on social norms, productivity and specific support for conflict areas and fragile countries.
There is another that is about gender transformative approaches, where the three institutions have undertaken an approach in which they tried to strengthen their internal capacity to do gender transformative work, but also to demonstrate the utility of such approaches in the field. It was working in Malawi and Ecuador.
The other thing is that there is a data initiative where IFAD and FAO are working with the World Bank to expand the surveys that Mr. Sitko mentioned, which are critical for doing the kind of work we do. It’s called the 50x2030 Initiative. It’s trying to have agricultural surveys in great detail in 50 countries by 2030, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in other low‑income and middle-income countries. I’ll let Ms. Bechdol comment on the broader issues of collaboration.
Ms. Bechdol: Thanks, Ms. Phillips. Senator, there are two things I would comment on. First, I would say that for the Rome‑based agencies, I think cooperation is at an all-time high. We have three leaders of organizations who work well together, spend time together and have travelled together. I think that is really starting to play itself out in the field at the country level, where our teams really have to be very cooperative in how we work.
The other thing that I think is changing is we now have very much increasingly focused on the importance of agri-food systems. We have had the Food Systems Summit hosted by the Secretary-General. We’re realizing that for many of us, the relationships with just two other sister agencies — who happen to be geographically placed in Rome — are not enough any longer. I’m really proud of the work that FAO has done to step in at a country level with the UN resident coordinators and the UN country teams to be partnering alongside colleagues who are in the United Nations Development Programme, or UNDP, the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, the International Labour Organization, or ILO, and UN Women, because each and every one of these other UN agencies has an increasingly important role to play in providing these types of unique solutions and comparative advantages to the challenges you mentioned.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: I have two quick questions. I’ll put them both out there. You started by talking about the sliver of climate finance that is devoted to the area we’re talking about here today. My first question is this: Has there been much done on the loss and damage fund, and tapping into that once it actually comes on stream, because the people you’re talking about are exactly what that is supposed to be for?
My second question, though, is this: I know the background of UN agencies and how they work with governments. A lot of the governments in some of the countries that we’re talking about here are not all that functional in some places. Does your agency work on these issues with the non-government sector — civil society — particularly locally? When we’re talking about social norms and things like that, often local organizations are better at those community-based interactions than governments can be.
Ms. Bechdol: Let me address the first question and maybe, specifically, Ms. Phillips can comment on some of the relationships with civil society and other non-state actors, which are very important collaborations and partnerships.
I think all of us are watching what comes next with the loss and damage fund that was created as a result of the last Conference of the Parties, or COP. We were certainly very encouraged by the targeted and sincere focus on food and agriculture in this last COP, and we are already engaged in what is coming for the next one in Baku.
These types of funds are very important developments given the pressures around traditional funding and financing. What we are seeing as an opportunity is the fact that they are very much programmatic and there are opportunities for multi-stakeholder approaches to secure this funding, so we are tracking and following them, and looking forward to trying to secure appropriate resources for some of these challenges.
Ms. Phillips: With regard to civil society organizations and local agencies, we work extensively with them, especially in difficult circumstances. Those could be either international non‑governmental organizations, or NGOs — CARE Canada has a strong presence and does great work on gender, for example — or more local organizations, such as women’s organizations that are organized to promote informal workers in India or other places in the world.
To tie back to making sure funding gets to those kinds of organizations, this is one of the opportunities: FAO was just selected to be an implementer for a small grants program that is affiliated with GEF. We have been talking to our colleagues in the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment to ensure that we can support those kinds of funds to get down to the smallest organization and to the organizations that represent, for example, Indigenous people, women or the very poor — those who may be overlooked if you have large international NGOs that are also eligible for that kind of financing. We do both kinds of work.
Senator Woo: My question may be the most difficult one. It stems from your opening comments about how the people who are most affected by climate change come from regions that were the least responsible for climate change in the first place.
There is a debate in this country, and a growing view among senior people, that Canada should not do much more, or much at all, to deal with our greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions because we contribute a very small amount — in global terms — to the GHG problem.
I wonder if you could react to that, please, if you feel comfortable.
The Chair: It’s not a political question at all. It’s okay.
Mr. Sitko: In some ways, I would think about it as an opportunity as well. If, as a global community, we recognize that this is a challenge — an existential challenge, potentially — the opportunities to create new forms of economies, new forms of job opportunities and business opportunities, as well as innovations in that space, and to be a world leader in that, tapping into what you have already, which is extremely high levels of human capital, will be the basis of any response to the climate crisis.
How do you shift your energy dependence or your emissions to different, lower emissions — sequestering carbon, et cetera? It’s going to be driven by human capital. That’s a major comparative advantage for a country like Canada. Even if your aggregate emissions are low, you’re still a large producer of fossil fuels, and you still have this very high human capital base that you could tap into to innovate in that sector, I would think. I think it’s ultimately in the best interests of everyone to solve this crisis, even for local politics.
Ms. Bechdol: Let me close by saying that I think we would be sharing a view here with your agricultural and political leadership that agriculture really does need to be viewed as one of the solutions to these challenges as opposed to what is oftentimes perceived as agriculture being the leading contributor — or villain even, in some ways.
It’s not to discount the fact that we know that large percentages of greenhouse gas emissions are tied to production of livestock and other aspects of agriculture, but we are committed to working with agricultural leaders and communities to identify ways that they can reduce these contributions, and ultimately try to not only get us back on track to the Sustainable Development Goals, but also ultimately try to contribute to a number of the climate-related challenges.
We have heard often about the focus, as Mr. Sitko said, on carbon markets and carbon pricing here in Canada. We hope that kind of leadership could be brought to the table.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We’re at time. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank our witnesses — Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General; Lauren Phillips, Deputy Director, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division; and Nicholas Sitko, Senior Economist, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division — all from FAO in Rome. Thank you for being with us today. We had a comprehensive discussion. Thank you for that.
Colleagues, before we adjourn, just a note that tomorrow we will meet for only one hour, starting at 12:30 p.m., to continue our study on Africa with His Excellency Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security at the African Union Commission. He is journeying all the way from Addis Ababa to be with us tomorrow.
(The committee adjourned.)