QUESTION PERIOD — Foreign Affairs
United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
March 28, 2023
Senator Gold, yesterday, the Auditor General of Canada released a report and noted that Global Affairs Canada was unable to show how the approximately $3.5 billion in bilateral development assistance that is prioritized each year for low- and middle-income countries actually improved outcomes for women and girls. While not arguing against the government’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, the Auditor General did identify serious reporting and accountability failures in monitoring the policy objectives.
Research conclusively shows that local women leaders are crucial multipliers in social, economic and democratic development, because women typically invest higher in their incomes and energy for their children and families, and because women never give up.
Investing in women’s empowerment is essential to reducing poverty, ending hunger, promoting democracy and achieving the global commitments of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Sadly, the Auditor General’s report finds that Global Affairs Canada missed an opportunity to collect evidence-based data to demonstrate the value of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy and galvanize progress to reach these crucial global goals.
Senator Gold, what is the government doing to rectify these gaps in effectiveness at Global Affairs?
Thank you for your question.
The government values the work of the Auditor General, takes its recommendations seriously and is working to make its processes more effective and impactful.
The challenge with the ambitious agenda that the government has put in place — and it is an ambitious agenda — is not only to gather data on individual programs, but to aggregate it so that it can be analyzed. It is critical that we assess the impact that it’s actually having on the ground on the lives of women and children and, indeed, on all projects that we fund.
We have been funding significantly. Indeed, in 2021-22, 99% of Canada’s bilateral development assistance either targeted or integrated gender equality results, which exceeded the target of 95% by 2022 that the government gave itself.
The challenge is also one of timing, because the programs get up and running, money is transferred, and schools, clean water facilities and the like are built, but then the collection of the data and the analysis take more time.
The government is committed, and now believes it begins to have the data to then properly aggregate and analyze and make sure that our money is being well spent with the impact that it needs to have to make a difference.
Senator Gold, there are very specific points raised in the Auditor General’s report. May I ask explicitly, please, as part of my question, if the answers to those concerns would be brought back to us with a specific focus on the empowerment of women and girls and the actual outcomes in bettering their lives?
I will certainly make inquiries, senator, but as I tried to answer, the fact is — as the Auditor General found — the data has not yet been fully collected or analyzed, and so the government is committed to doing that. It will just take time for that. I’ll do my best to get at least a progress report such that we know that we’re heading in the right direction, which I firmly believe we are.
