Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development

Comité permanent des affaires étrangères et du développement international

For immediate release

Ottawa, February 14, 2023 -

Today, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development presented a report to the House of Commons entitled, The 2022 Extreme Flooding in Pakistan: Saving Lives and Supporting a Climate-Resilient Recovery.

The Committee’s report summarizes Pakistan’s needs in the wake of last summer’s catastrophic flooding, as well as the daunting challenges the country will continue to face from climate change.

Set against those short- and long-term challenges, the Committee’s report focuses on the implementation of two Government of Canada policies. First are the matching funds the Government of Canada uses to respond to humanitarian crises. Second is Canada’s $5.3 billion international climate finance commitment.

The report makes recommendations on both policies. With respect to matching funds, the report recommends that the Government of Canada review its approach to “ensure such funds are as inclusive of as many Canadian and other humanitarian organizations as possible, without compromising on efficiency, programming effectiveness, or accountability.”

The report makes two recommendations concerning the Government of Canada’s international climate finance envelope. It calls for enhanced transparency regarding the allocation of funding, eligibility parameters, and application processes. Moreover, it recommends that the government increase the proportion of the funding that is delivered as grants, while decreasing the proportion of Unconditionally Repayable Contributions.

Finally, the report also recommends that going forward the Government of Canada should include “flexibility in its contribution agreements with locally operational NGOs to allow them to use their funding for immediate emergency relief in the event of a natural disaster.”

The full text of the Committee’s report is available on its website.