SRID Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

SOUS-COMITÉ DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT INTERNATIONAL DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 24, 1999

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting to order of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for your patience.

As you will know, in testimony before the main committee last February, Minister Axworthy suggested that useful work could be done by the committee on the subject of human security issues in Africa. Our purpose today is to begin the process of narrowing the scope of such a study through briefings with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, CIDA, and IDRC, the International Development Research Centre. We're also planning to have a meeting with NGO groups concerned with Africa before the Christmas break.

So your input today is very important to us. We'd like a little guidance because we would like to produce a report that will be effective and in an area in which we can make a difference. So thank you very much for being here.

This is a round table meeting, and I think it's going to be a combined round table meeting in order for everyone to have the opportunity to ask their questions.

In terms of presentations, was anyone going to be doing a short presentation to get us focused? I think most of you are familiar faces to all of us, but for the record I'll introduce you. From Foreign Affairs we have Sandelle Scrimshaw—welcome—and Jill Sinclair; from the Canadian International Development Agency we have Michel Archambault; and from IDRC we have Tim Dottridge and Stephen Baranyi.

Ms. Scrimshaw, were you going to begin?

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw (Director General, Africa Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): Yes, I am.

The Chair: Thank you. You have the floor.

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you and the other members of the committee for convening this meeting on human security in Africa. Human security is clearly a principal lens or focus through which we manage our relations and our interests in Africa these days. I hope we can be helpful to you in trying to focus or define areas that the committee might pursue over the coming months.

[Translation]

With your permission, I'd like to give you a brief overview of the situation in Africa. I will then ask my colleague Jill Sinclair to provide a more detailed explanation of the approach that we would like to take in dealing with the issue of human security in Africa. Michel Archambault from CIDA will explain to you CIDA's programs in this field, while Tim Dottridge from IDRC will outline for you the efforts of his agency in the area of human security.

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We want to give you as clear a picture as possible of how the concept of human security applies in actual fact.

[English]

I think you're all aware that the Prime Minister has just come back from his first bilateral visit to Africa. His visit held a spotlight to a part of the world where concerns about human security are growing. In many ways, the three countries he visited, Senegal, Nigeria, and South Africa, are on the relatively healthy or at least hopeful side of the ledger.

Senegal is a multi-party democracy and has played I think an important role in the region, given its political stability and its active diplomacy. On the other hand, we have Nigeria, which has very recently come back from the brink of authoritarian misrule and terrible economic mismanagement after successive military regimes. And then in South Africa, the Prime Minister of course attended the meeting of Commonwealth heads of government. It was an opportunity for Thabo Mbeki and his government not only to host this meeting but I think to showcase the role that South Africa is poised to play in the sub-region and also a very forward-looking agenda on an African renaissance.

But that is only one side of Africa, and I think one of the main messages I want to leave with you today is that there are many Africas.

You will have received at your desk the two maps, one in English and one in French, entitled “Categorizations—Plusieurs Afriques”, which I would invite you to look at, at your leisure.

I think that gives you a sense that there are countries that are emerging and others that aspire to political and economic success. There are grey zones where we don't know what's going to happen in countries that are really on the margin. And sadly—very sadly—in Africa today there are still many countries that are unhealthy, where you have people suffering from a chronic lack of security in their daily lives; they're victims of frequent assaults that neither their own governments nor the international community can protect them from. A great many countries remain caught in this vicious grip of conflict: Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Angola, to mention only a few of the most prominent cases and those countries where Canada has tried to play a role.

This particular map I think is particularly telling, and I think it was produced in PCO. This morning it was updated. Just look at that swath of red that cuts across the continent from Algeria down to the Sudan, and then of course the whole Great Lakes and Angola region. As we look at this map and think about conflicts in Africa, I think we should keep in mind that half of the world's conflicts today are in Africa.

[Translation]

Conflicts are raging in some 20 different countries.

[English]

This has given rise to a very problematic refugee and humanitarian situation, with probably somewhere in the order of eight million refugees in Africa and perhaps as many as 20 million displaced persons.

One of the things we're seeing in Africa with respect to conflicts, as we are in other parts of the world, is that conflicts are now more complex than they've ever been. Until this past year, or year or two, most of the conflicts in Africa were fought within rather than between states. The combatants in these conflicts are often irregular forces, the rebels, the mercenaries, the militias, the non-state actors who have very loose chains of command and who are frequently divided along ethnic or religious lines. These conflicts also see thousands of children forced to participate as combatants, or as spies or sexual slaves.

Small arms, an issue that Jill will address shortly, are usually the weapons of choice. They take a particularly devastating toll on civilians. Indeed, eight out of 10 of the casualties of conflicts in Africa are civilians.

Finally, diamonds and oil and other resources fuel these conflicts. It's what Minister Axworthy has referred to as the new war economy.

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So those are the kinds of conflicts we're dealing with today. They're very different from the conflicts we've known in the past. And now linking it to what the committee is looking at, human security, it's exactly in these areas, in these crisis areas, where human security is especially threatened, where you see violence on the rise, where governments are failing, and criminals act with impunity.

But on a more positive note—and I think that's what we're always trying to do in Africa, is try to get a sense of balance—we're witnessing increased African leadership to prevent and resolve conflicts. We can think of the efforts of neighbouring states in the west African region in terms of brokering the peace agreement in Sierra Leone. The still fragile ceasefire agreement in Congo is another example where, through the OAU and the SADC countries, there has been a meeting of minds. And there is the developing of an early warning system in ECOWAS.

These are simply some examples of African initiative, Africans saying we recognize that we cannot depend on the international community to solve our problems, we have to take matters into our own hands, but at the same time we look to you, members of the international community, to support us.

I think the other positive thing we're seeing in Africa now is more progress towards the respect for human rights and democracy. More and more countries are having democratic parliamentary elections, and we're seeing judicial and administrative reform—areas where CIDA is working in a number of countries.

So that's a bit of the political landscape that will be the backdrop against which we will look at human security in Africa. But just for a minute I'd like to say something about the economic dimension, because I think they're interrelated.

Africa is, sadly, probably the only continent where at the beginning of this next century we will see poverty on an increase. Of the 48 least developed countries, 33 are in Africa. It's the continent where there is the lowest life expectancy, an expectancy on the average of 54 years, and clearly there are variations. This life expectancy, generally speaking, is decreasing.

It's the continent where there is the highest population growth in the world, over 2.6%, where 40% of the population live on less than one dollar a day. What is particularly worrisome is that the disparities between the rich and the poor are increasing.

Finally, I would add that in 1998, four million out of 5.8 million newly HIV-infected people and 22.5 million out of 33.4 million living with AIDS were in sub-Saharan Africa. In many ways this factor is almost as important, if not more so, as the toll in the form of conflicts that is taking place on this continent.

So it is clear, I hope, from this very brief snapshot that Africa will remain the greatest development challenge of the 21st century and that Canada's human security agenda in Africa must be seen against this backdrop.

I have one or two more comments, then I'd like to actually get into the heart of human security, and then Jill will take it over.

The other point I'd like to make is that when we look at human security in Africa, I think we have to look at it through the lens of African leadership and Canada-Africa partnership. This is a continent where land mines kill and maim more people than anywhere else in the world. It was the Africans who took the lead in the campaign to ban anti-personnel mines, of course, together with Canada and the friends of the campaign.

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Many of the 100 million to 500 million assault rifles and other small arms now in circulation have found their way to African battle zones. Again, it's Africans from all walks of life who are trying to cope with this plague.

When Minister Axworthy was in Durban just two weeks ago to attend the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, he joined the Deputy Minister of Defence of South Africa, who is a woman, to participate in a symbolic burning of small arms. This event was organized by a new NGO called the International Network on Small Arms. Many of the participating NGOs were from Africa.

One takes hope when one sees that kind of commitment and that kind of partnership between NGOs and government and between governments in Africa and countries such as Canada.

That is a little bit of a bridge into what Jill will say on human security.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Jill Sinclair.

Ms. Jill Sinclair (Director General, Global and Human Issues Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Translation]

Thank you for asking me to make a brief presentation.

I'll begin by quickly reviewing for you the concept of human security and then give you a few examples. Sandelle has already identified a number of very practical initiatives that can be undertaken in Africa.

[English]

In talking about human security, I would just start off by saying what it is, because I think a lot of people have been trying to grapple with the concept. I would like to suggest it isn't so much a concept as a way of doing foreign policy. It's a new operational approach to foreign policy.

It's nothing more than putting people first. It's that simple. It sounds simple, but of course previously, in doing foreign policy and in looking at international relations, governments haven't tended to put people first; they've tended to put states first. The whole concept of state sovereignty has always been the most important approach. The overriding objective was to protect the state.

Canada has been proposing that we take a different approach to international relations and put people first. This is what human security is all about. It's about protecting the safety and well-being of individuals. It's about enhancing people's safety, protecting them from violent acts. Sandelle has just listed a number of areas in Africa where one can see that people are threatened on a daily basis. That's why when one talks about human security, Africa immediately leaps to mind as a part of the world where we really need to focus our efforts.

Human security is also based on promoting, advocating, and putting in place human rights protection and ensuring respect for international humanitarian law standards, not simply having countries sign up and ratify conventions. That's always nice, but it's not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise is actual implementation—implementation in ways that have a positive, beneficial impact on people living in these countries.

It also means we will hold accountable those who violate these principles. This is where our initiative on the International Criminal Court comes in. Again, Sandelle has spoken about impunity. We will actually ensure that people are made accountable, internationally and also domestically, for what they do. People cannot act with impunity. Governments and leaders can no longer act with impunity.

This means we need to adjust our bilateral relationships, we need to adjust our regional organizations, and we need to make the United Nations system function in a different way, if what we're really doing is not talking about how we protect governments but how we protect people. As I say, it sounds simple, but it's actually quite an enormous shift in the way in which we do international relations.

However, I would like to say that while it sounds like a radical concept, there are parts of the world that have been putting people first or trying to deal with human issues for quite a while. One example, if anybody around the table remembers the Cold War, was back in the old days, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. At the deepest, darkest moments of the Cold War, they had what they called the human dimension to dealing with the conflict, the big divides between east and west. It was recognized that even if the great blocks of powers couldn't seek an accommodation to make the world a safer place, you could permit certain limited interventions that would help the lives of people.

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So it does have a bit of a history, but we're making it a main focus of the work of the United Nations, and we're trying to get it as a standard operating procedure in everything we do. That means if we're looking at peacekeeping operations, for example, we want to make sure that when we write mandates for peacekeeping operations, UN peacekeepers who go in in these operations are able to act to protect civilians.

We've actually been able to do this in a couple of recent examples: East Timor and also the Sierra Leone resolution. This was quite new. Again, it sounds so instinctive: of course, if you're going in in a peacekeeping operation, you're going to be able to take action to act in defence of civilians. But this hasn't necessarily been the case previously. So this is one area where we've been putting a lot of emphasis.

I'd like to focus on a few very practical examples of the human security agenda where it becomes an implementation mechanism. Again, Sandelle has touched on a number of them, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, but I'd just like to give you a bit of a flavour of some of the issues in the hope that we can discuss them as we move into the next part of our meeting.

The first thing that comes to mind of course is the land mine file, not simply because some of us have worked on it a lot. Sandelle mentioned it as one of the key issues that has affected Africa. If you look at the human security question, the impact of land mines on the daily lives of people in all parts of Africa, from their ability to go to work, go to school, have playgrounds for children.... I don't think I need to go into the details. I think people know about the issue. Again, Africa led the process on the land mine ban effort, along with Canada and a number of other partners.

The key now, if we're talking about how to deal with the land mine issue in a way that enhances the human security of the individual, comes down to implementing the convention. In the case of Africa, that doesn't mean simply destroying stockpiles, which is extremely important, but it means the international community rallying around in meaningful ways to help the countries clear the mines and also do the very necessary rehabilitation, both psychosocial and physical rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims.

Again, Sandelle has spoken about the small arms issue. It's a major issue in Africa, and it's another example of where countries of Africa have taken the lead in a very positive way. Mali, for example, has taken the lead in promoting micro disarmament efforts, trying to get some sort of control on the small arms flow into their country. There's a moratorium saying, “We don't want these weapons coming into our countries, the countries of West Africa.” They're appealing to the supplier countries outside to not send weapons into that part of the world. This is another positive example of African countries getting together to try to deal with an issue that is of really deep concern to them. There's a close partnership with countries such as Canada in support of those efforts.

On the more macro scale, Canada has been promoting the protection of civilians in armed conflict through the United Nations system. Indeed, under our presidency of the Security Council, we promoted a debate on this issue. It resulted in a very comprehensive report from the Secretary General of the United Nations, with 40 recommendations on how the UN system and others could work to protect civilians in armed conflict. It covers the range of issues.

Sandelle's mention of the refugee problem in Africa makes me think of one of the recommendations in the report, which is that when you have refugees in refugee camps, they should be able to feel safe and secure. You shouldn't have guerrilla forces nestled within those camps, threatening the security of the very refugees and making relocation and resettlement efforts much more difficult. This is part of the secretary general's report, that we need to deal with the protection of true refugees in refugee camps. We need to deal also with internally displaced people. We need to deal, as I say, with the question of mandates for peacekeeping operations and peace-building operations that will give attention to women and children as a first priority.

The establishment of the International Criminal Court is another one of the practical initiatives that flow out of a human security agenda, and there we need the support of everyone, particularly parliamentarians, I would say, in advocating adherence to the statutes of the court. It's extremely important if we're really going to move the world forward on the issue of impunity.

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Children in armed conflict is a theme I'd like to spend a couple of minutes on, because this is a problem that permeates Africa. Virtually no country in Africa is untouched by this problem. When we speak about children in armed conflict, we speak about those who aren't simply currently in conflictual situations but who are living the results of having been in conflict for many, many years.

It isn't simply enough to talk about child soldiers, which is of course a very, very important dimension of the problem, and the need to deal with the rebel groups that—“recruit” is too gentle a word to use—force children at very, very young ages, some as young as 8, 10, or 12 years old, to not simply fight on the front lines but be the water-carriers or the sex slaves or the backup forces for the front-line forces. We have to figure out ways of dealing with this, but we need to go beyond that. We need to look at preventive measures. We need to look at conflict prevention measures so that we don't have children ending up in situations of armed conflict.

We also need to do a lot of work in post-conflict peace-building situations to demobilize, disarm, and effectively reintegrate these children into society. It's an enormous, enormous challenge, because the psychological scars are just unimaginable. This is a lifetime's work.

Also, children who may have been getting some sort of sustenance or at least somewhere to live while they were with a rebel group fighting now have nothing if they're demobilized. We have to make sure they have places to live. We have to make sure there's an education infrastructure for them. We have to make sure there are places to work. It's a vast, vast agenda.

So when you talk about children in armed conflict, there's an awful lot of work to be done, and Africa is the place where we really need to focus our efforts.

Again, Canada is doing a lot of work in this area. We're working with Ghana in particular at the moment, in a conference that will look at this issue and how we can try to effectively deal at least with the West African situation, although the problems go way, way beyond that.

The final area I'd like to talk about a little bit is conflict prevention and also peace-building efforts.

One area is reform of the security sector. What do you do in the post-conflict situation with the fighting forces? You need to make them into useful, constructive members of society. This is not an easy thing, because there are not necessarily jobs for them to go to, and you're having to deal with turning around a whole culture of violence. So it's a fairly complex task.

Another area is civilian police training, developing police systems in countries that are coming out of conflict, where no other or perhaps very few other government institutions are up and functioning. You at least need a functioning police system that people can have some confidence in. This is an area Canada has been paying some attention to. Again, we're doing some interesting training in Ghana and other countries in Africa.

Finally, how do you actually implement the human security agenda? It's not enough for Canada to be out there talking about this as a new concept and a new approach. So what we've been seeking to do is build partnerships, and partnerships at various levels.

Whilst many think of our traditional partners being countries such as Norway, Australia, and the countries you can think of, on the human security agenda, the interesting thing is that some of our best partners, our most engaged partners, our most effective partners, are the countries of Africa.

I guess I risk being too upbeat here, Sandelle, but when I think of issues such as land mines, small arms, and peace-building, countries such as Mozambique, South Africa, Mali, Ghana, and even Nigeria in its transformed state are the partners who are going to effect the change in their continent. They're the ones that are really driving the agenda through their regional and sub-regional organizations, and Canada needs to act in a supportive role.

What I find interesting in Africa is you have countries that have decided to take on their problems and deal with them, and they need donor countries and they need countries such as Canada to come in and support efforts and initiatives they've already identified. That's a little bit different from other parts of the world, and that's why I'm somewhat encouraged.

Other partnerships are with civil society and NGOs. The classic example of this would be the land mine campaign, but it goes well beyond that. Again, Sandelle has just cited the example of the new coalition of NGOs that has formed around the small arms issue. There's a very effective coalition around the children in armed conflict issue, and again, you find some of the most dynamic and strong NGO participants come from the countries of Africa. But they too need assistance in capacity-building and making the networks and linkages so that they can work with the broader community around the world.

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Our partnerships also extend, obviously, to the United Nations, not using the UN simply as a forum, as a diplomatic setting, but engaging the agencies of the United Nations. You can think of the whole range of them, from UNICEF and the United Nations development program to special partners like Olara Otunnu, who is the secretary general's special representative on children and armed conflict, and also to working with regional and sub-regional organizations. Again, in Africa, with the Organization of African Unity, we have a very good partner there. Again, it needs some assistance with capacity-building in order to deal with human security issues.

Finally, I would say that human security is security that you build from the ground up. It isn't a top-down security; that's the way we used to do security. If you're talking about building security from the ground up, obviously civil society is your initial partner, but parliamentarians, legislatures...these are the people who are going to need to effect the change at the local level and at the national level if what we are really going to do is enhance individual security.

That's what I would say by way of some opening comments. I would be very delighted to take your questions. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. I didn't want to interrupt you. You are so very enthusiastic that it was really quite nice listening to you.

Michel.

Mr. Michel Archambault (Director General, North Africa and the Middle East, Canadian International Development Agency): Merci. Thank you for inviting us today.

I'm afraid that in our intervention after Foreign Affairs you will find that we are a copycat. It is a little bit true because we work together very closely. I submitted a brief previously, and what I will do, if you don't mind, is just read some excerpts out of the text and insist on one or two things to re-emphasize what has been said by my colleagues.

[Translation]

First, I'd like to outline the approach taken by CIDA in Africa. The purpose of Official Development Assistance is to support sustainable development in developing countries with a view to reducing poverty and making the world more secure, equitable and prosperous. As you may recall, this goal was stated in the government's 1995 White Paper.

This purpose is especially relevant for Africa and the Middle East, where the needs for development and poverty reduction are closely related to peace and security. Without peace and security, any effort to reduce poverty is tenuous and short-lived. Moreover, violence, conflict and anarchy are often rooted in poverty. Person- centred development is also one of the key conditions for long-term poverty reduction.

In 1996, immediately following the release of the government's white paper stating its foreign policy, the geographic program developed a policy framework for the cooperation program in Africa and the Middle East known as "Towards Human Security in Africa and the Middle East". This framework situates the issues of human security and poverty in a context of sustainable development. It identifies public institutions and government as key stakeholders in establishing necessary conditions for development, which include promoting sound public policies as well as recognizing and respecting human rights. Promoting peace and security is a central theme in our efforts to reduce poverty in Africa.

Democracy, the rule of law and protection of human rights, including minority rights, are among the basic values that Canadians wish to protect overseas. CIDA's activities in these areas thus seek to meet the aspirations of Canadians, who wish to spread these values and to create favourable conditions for sustainable development.

As I run through this document, I'd like to draw your attention to

[English]

the chart that I have distributed as well, which indicates that the efforts...BHN is basic human needs, and the efforts in human rights are HRDG, human rights and democratic development in governance. You will see through that chart that most of the expenses of Africa branch last year were in those sectors: 32% in basic human needs and 27% in human rights, democratic development, and governance.

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Human rights initiatives in bilateral cooperation: in 1998-99, the geographic program disbursed $254 million, excluding the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, a decrease of 7% from 1997-98. Despite this reduction, the program achieved a slight increase in total numbers for its small-scale projects in all sectors combined. This increase is seen particularly in the areas of human rights, democratic development, and good government.

Good governance is the most important area of cooperation after the priority area of basic human needs. For programming purposes, good governance includes democratic development and the promotion of human rights. In all, we have 91 governance projects totalling $47 million in expenditures last year, 12 democratic development projects totalling $4.2 million, and 27 human rights projects totalling $12.5 million. That's in the last fiscal year.

CIDA seeks to build democratic governmental and electoral institutions. Today, for example, there is a presidential election in Nigeria. CIDA was present and was helping the commission for a transparent election in Nigeria through support of that commission.

CIDA seeks to promote the growth of civil society and to increase the competence and accountability of the public sector. CIDA also seeks to promote the cause of human rights, including women's and children's rights, through local projects and activities with international bodies such as the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, and the Global Coalition for Africa.

I also want to point out here the tremendous work that is being done by our embassies abroad in the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. As you know, all our embassies abroad have a small amount of money provided by CIDA in order for them to be able to respond immediately, without the bureaucratic process of having headquarters involved, to small calls for civil society involvement and empowerment as well as strengthening the civil society. Most of these calls are with women and with civil rights and civil society strengthening.

CIDA cooperates with civil society, pan-African, and regional organizations such as the Organization of African Unity, the Economic Community of West African States, the Southern African Development Community, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development of the Horn, national governments, human rights advocacy organizations, and political authorities wishing to promote respectful human rights and good governance.

More and more, the bilateral program of CIDA is working directly with the civil society. I have a colleague of mine here who is responsible for Central Africa, for the Congos, and for Burundi. If you ask questions specifically on that, she can tell you that because of the lack of governments in some of those countries and because it is difficult to work with governments, we have, more and more, directly encouraged civil society, either through Canadian NGOs or directly in the countries, in order to give some kind of hope to the civil society in those countries.

I did list some examples in some countries in the document. You can read them as well.

Let me conclude by saying that some of our basic human needs efforts help to establish the necessary conditions for promoting human rights. For example, basic education programs constitute another manifestation of our concern for human rights. Basic education must be strengthened in order for people to know, understand, and demand their rights. In this area, the geographical cooperation program has set itself the target of helping to increase the level and percentage of school attendance and the number of children who complete their primary studies, particularly women and girl children.

Despite these efforts, it is true that several African countries still face considerable challenges. Fifteen African countries enrol 50% of their children in primary school and 25 have adult literacy rates under 40%. Weaknesses in education limit the progress that can be made, not only in civil and political rights but also in economic and social development.

Merci.

The Chair: Thank you. Are you both making presentations?

Mr. Stephen Baranyi (Senior Program Officer, Peacebuilding Program, International Development Research Centre): Yes, we are.

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Baranyi.

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Mr. Stephen Baranyi: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you especially for inviting IDRC to this round table. As a public corporation that spends almost half of its much more modest resources on supporting development research in Africa, IDRC welcomes the opportunity to comment on a topic that is, of course, of great interest to our partners in the region.

My colleague, Tim, and I will each make very brief comments on different aspects of the human security and human development problems in the region.

Earlier this year, Minister Axworthy tabled a fascinating paper arguing that human security is related to but distinct from human development, that fostering human security involves building an enabling environment for human development through measures to increase people's safety from violent and non-violent threats. As noted by my colleagues, even if we accept this distinction, the field of human security concerns in Africa is truly vast, starting with the obvious causes of insecurity like the protracted wars raging in 12 to 20 countries, depending on how you define war.

There are also the issues of the millions of land mines that were and are still used in many of those conflicts; human rights violations perpetrated by state and non-state forces; small arms that are traded freely across borders; the inability or unwillingness of public police forces to protect people's lives and property; the apparently expanding scope of criminality, corruption, and violence, including domestic violence, in many parts, but not all, of the continent.

Yet in practical terms I'm sure you'll agree that it's very difficult to separate these phenomena, these narrow-band human security concerns, from the so-called non-violent sources of human insecurity, like the grinding poverty of the majority of Africans, massive unemployment and under-employment in most countries, epidemics like AIDS and HIV, drug abuse, migration, defective judicial institutions, resource scarcity, natural disasters, the unequal distribution of resources and assets, poor management of natural resources, including land, etc.

Of all of these pressing concerns, I would like to highlight three sets of problems on which IDRC is active in Africa, in partnership with African institutions. Those are peace-building, governance, and issues at the interface of human security and human development.

With regard to post-war peace-building, the media's focus on tragedy overshadows stories of relative success. In ending wars and in building peace in certain African countries, IDRC is particularly active in two of those contexts: Mozambique and South Africa.

In Mozambique, for example, we supported innovative attempts by the war-torn society's project to feed research into debates on the reintegration of demobilized soldiers, the role of the mass media in post-war reconstruction, participation in local government, and the impact of structural adjustment on agriculture. Different as they may seem, all of these are absolutely essential elements of rebuilding a society after war.

We've also supported and continue to support action research on mine initiatives.

In South Africa we've found that rigorous and timely research can indeed have a constructive impact on the search for solutions to the enormous challenges confronting societies in the aftermath of war. These and other cases of what we can call relative success, including Mali, Namibia, Uganda, etc., are extremely important as examples that other African countries can build on.

Yet in both contexts we have also found that consolidating peace and human security cannot be achieved without paying more concerted attention to two particular dimensions of post-war reconstruction: democratic governance and human development.

Last week IDRC sponsored a modest conference in Johannesburg entitled “Priorities for Africa and the UN Millennium Assembly”, where this point was made quite forcefully by many African participants. Several delegates argued that governance failure in the form of authoritarian or personalistic regimes, Pretorian armies, corrupt judicial institutions, weak civil society organizations, etc., were the main causes of human insecurity on the continent.

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The debate touched on many solutions that are currently circulating, some of which were mentioned by my colleagues, including the strengthening of the capacity of regional and sub-regional organizations to offer a more effective mediation, preventative deployment and peacekeeping services, developing regional mechanisms to regulate the flow of small arms across borders, reforming political parties and electoral tribunals, fostering greater civil society engagement in politics, etc. Some even advocated what they called a grand bargain, whereby African states would move toward these objectives while the international community opened up spaces for Africans to become equal partners in the shaping of international norms through, for example, UN Security Council reform. The subcommittee might indeed consider some of these ideas in its inquiry on human security in Africa.

IDRC is exploring its own ways in which we can support research on some of these issues. We're currently working with partners to develop an innovative project on the use of information and communication technologies to promote human rights capacity-building in the region. We're looking at ways of supporting research that would contribute to the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. More broadly, we're preparing the ground for a new program on governance in sub-Saharan Africa that will support research on strategies for building enabling environments resting on the rule of law, state legitimacy, representative institutions, and citizenship.

Mr. Tim Dottridge (Senior Policy Analyst, Policy and Planning Group, International Development Research Centre): I'd just like to say a few words following up on what others have addressed, which are the links between human security and human development.

Many of the underlying causes of insecurity are those we have to deal with on the agenda of human development. As Michel Archambault has already mentioned, poverty in all its forms is a major source of insecurity in Africa. It's the poor actually who are subject to the greatest insecurity, whether it be the fragility of their access to the essential resources for life and the need to struggle for survival or in their greater opportunities for succumbing to various forms of disease.

When I mention some of these human development issues, the danger for Africa is that this always sounds like a panoply or a listing of dramatic and negative issues. I do hope when the committee has the opportunity, it will look at some of the very positive things that have also been mentioned here that are happening in Africa. Luckily we often have an opportunity to see some very, very positive things through some of the development research, both great and small, that courageous Africans are doing with very limited resources.

Let me just touch on a few areas of security linked to human development issues. I think the greatest one is just straightforward insecurity in access to sustainable economic livelihood. This is a major factor of insecurity; it's a major obstacle to development.

In terms of food security, just increasing agricultural production alone will not directly help those who suffer from lack of food. They often don't have enough income to buy it. Those in the rural areas don't have access to land or other resources to grow the food for themselves. In addition there is environmental degradation, which is eroding that already rather fragile land base.

So this contributes to enormous rural-to-urban migration, which as you know is putting great pressure on the capacity of urban areas to manage themselves, even really to cope with the influx of population. So land tenure, distribution, are critical issues, as is also access to water and water demand management.

Africa needs to develop strategies for governments to work with communities to tackle development problems that often fuel internal conflict. We're supporting the kind of research on community-based management, community resource management, that aims to suggest policies and to propose institutional or local government arrangements that could ensure that kind of equitable access, rights, and responsibilities with respect both to land and water.

Recently we've seen the research on citizens' rights in Kenya shows how a better treatment of those basic rights to things like land, access to markets, and access to security, just from cattle rustling, are completely intertwined with human security and development.

• 1635

I will just give you one other area, and perhaps afterwards we can provide others in writing of the areas we're working on. In both rural and urban areas, poor people, who are the majority of the population, have to have recourse to a very varied pattern of insecure strategies—in fact, even calling them strategies is an exaggeration; we're really talking about coping mechanisms—in order to generate adequate incomes to get the goods and services they need just for survival. We're talking here about things that are far removed from the formal employment we know, that involve working in micro or small enterprises and often migrating around to where the opportunities appear to be better. There are major issues here relating to education and small-scale entrepreneurship. Governments are often unwitting obstacles to development through inappropriate regulations and inadequate support for some of these areas.

Research, for instance, on youth livelihoods...there's a knowledge network linking people from civil society, but also from government sectors, and with participation of youth groups, looking at how we can devise, or the African governments can devise, policies that will better support those kinds of people, who are in fact otherwise contributing to insecurity. These are the kinds of people who are in the shanty towns and whose only recourse in order to get resources is often, as you know, to crime. There are other aspects of this, such as research in South Africa looking at how women survive and how they prosper, or don't, as street vendors and what changes we can make in policy and infrastructure.

I would be very glad to give other examples to you and to provide, in due course, more information to the committee, where development research on some of these issues that are contributing to insecurity, that are related to human development, are helping to make a difference. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you. Part of that almost sounded like home, when you talk about poverty and crime.

Mr. Martin.

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Ref.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you all very much for appearing here today. It really warms my heart to see the issue that the committee has chosen to explore, and I thank you very much for your interventions.

Before we begin, I'd just like to read out a motion that I'd like to have the committee deal with, perhaps at the next meeting. It'll be translated at that time. The motion I'd like to introduce today reads as follows:

That in the opinion of this committee, the Government of Canada immediately explore ways to get grain and other Canadian food products to the Angolan people via CIDA's Food Aid Program.

I will submit that to the proper channels and we can perhaps debate it the next time.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Keith Martin: I have several questions. My interest is in the prevention of a lot of the problems you articulately outlined that we know about very, very well. On the issue of protecting civilians, we must have some levers by which we can protect those civilians. We have a problem with having an inability to prevent deadly conflict, and we pay the price in the future when conflict erupts. As Ambassador Sinclair articulately mentioned, there are all the problems that are affecting not only the adults, but particularly the children.

In cold hard dollars and cents, from the World Bank's perspective, the amount of money they've spent in post-conflict reconstruction in the last 16 years has increased 800%. So not only is there an argument on a purely humanitarian basis, there's also an argument in cold hard dollars and cents.

One of the questions I want to ask you is, what ways are you, in your positions, trying to explore ways we can truly prevent conflict, using levers, perhaps economic levers, through the World Bank and the IMF, to deal with regimes that are engaging in behaviours that are patently destructive to their citizenry? As I think Ambassador Sinclair mentioned, the rationale for involvement today is not to protect the sovereignty of the state, but to protect the sovereignty of the individual, and international law respects that.

I have a few other questions. On conditionality of aid, there is the notion that the focus on aid is more onshore than offshore. Perhaps, Mr. Archambault, you can address that issue. Secondly, could you tell us basically what's happening with the HIPIC initiative, and what we're doing about the Zimbabwean land reforms, which I think are going to be devastating toward the country and the security of that country? And last is the UN arms registry and what manoeuvres have been done to strengthen that.

• 1640

Just as a point of interest, Dr. Steve Simon, who is the UNICEF rep in Botswana, had a very interesting, and I think effective, program in developing a public-private partnership. He didn't ask UNICEF for very much money, but he managed to get a lot of money from the private groups within Botswana, and as a result has done some incredible things by linking up the private sector to help the most dispossessed in the country. He's taken that message, I think about a month ago, to Malaysia. That will be of interest to those of you who are dealing with it.

I'll shut up, and if you could educate me, that would be great.

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Perhaps I'll start, and then turn to colleagues on a number of the issues.

The first was on the levers we have to influence countries so that conflicts are prevented, rather than having to deal with the very costly impacts of conflicts.

There are a number of ways we can do that. We can do it in terms of our regular political dialogue that we have with African countries. We can do it in terms of a little bit of aid conditionality, and I'll let Michel address this a little more specifically. In other words, we have learned with practice that throwing good money into a country where there is not sound government or where domestic resources are being used to purchase arms or to basically feed the military doesn't make good development sense. So we try to adjust our development programs to reflect that, in other words, to take that into account, or ideally, to influence them in a constructive way.

I just came back from Africa on Monday night, and we had a meeting of our heads of mission—our ambassadors and high commissioners—from west and central Africa. We were talking about the DRC, and there are about eight or nine countries involved in this.

The question we ask ourselves is, what are we doing through the World Bank, the IMF, and the African Development Bank when loan proposals come to the board for Zimbabwe, Uganda, or Rwanda? Are we making any linkage between these loan proposals and the money that clearly they are spending to engage in conflict? Are we acting in a way that is equitable—not having different standards for the protagonist versus the opponent? It's an issue right now that we brought back with us, and as we look at what we might do in DRC and in the Great Lakes area, we are going to have consultations with our colleagues in the ministry of finance and within our own department to see if we can't use this as an effective lever.

I think with governments we can act at different levels. Of course, we're also looking at how we can work with civil society to prevent conflicts. There is one idea we're exploring right now—and it's only an idea, but this is a table ronde, so I think I can put it on the table. When we were in Ghana with Minister Axworthy in January we broached the subject with President Rawlings of the possibility of trying to bring together Canada's indigenous people and tribal leaders in Ghana to share experience about conflict prevention and conflict resolution at the local level.

Already there are linkages, though more of a cultural nature. But knowing how, in Ghana, a chieftaincy organization was very active in diffusing tensions in northern Ghana, we thought there may be some cooperation that we could foster in this area. We're working as well with civil society in Eritrea and Ethiopia through the war-torn societies project to look at encouraging dialogue between academics and NGOs to try to identify what the real causes of the conflict are—because it's not always obvious—and what the possible technical, practical solutions are.

So these are some of the ways we're trying to get at it, working at a government level and working at a civil society level.

• 1645

Mr. Keith Martin: Is there a strong move to put conditionality on some of the activities and actions you're engaging in, so that places like the DRC, Angola, and other countries are not going to continue to engage in behaviours that are patently destructive to their societies?

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Definitely, what we're seeing now, in our bilateral dialogue and in our participation in international fora, is that questions are being asked about how much money is being devoted to that war effort—how they are financing it. It's often very difficult to get reliable figures of the problem, but we know the resources are coming from somewhere. If they're not coming from the domestic budget, they're coming from the resource extraction industries of the country in which the conflict is taking place, and that's very worrisome, because they're mortgaging the future.

Do you want to answer that?

Ms. Jill Sinclair: I think Michel wanted to, and then I'll jump in.

Mr. Michel Archambault: Yes, just to continue on this question of conditionality, we exercise conditionality every day, because we have a political dialogue on the day-to-day management of each of the projects, each of the programs, and in the planning of the projects. So whenever we receive a request from a country or whenever we think that a Canadian or local NGO has a wonderful opportunity to implement something, the planning exercise of that is a dialogue, and the dialogue is always exercising our privilege of bringing the resources and the Canadian expertise under the conditions that we forecast as being successful for results.

I'm telling you that at CIDA at least—well in Foreign Affairs, too; I don't want to exclude Foreign Affairs—we do withdraw from projects when we see that the results are not going to happen the way we thought they would. We don't do that very often, obviously, because we are in a dialogue mode. We do have people in front of us, and we do have countries that are most of the time very friendly to Canada. So we do that from a dialogue perspective.

At the international level—I was reading a report yesterday from the World Bank—they do have those also. There's debate about conditionality, about how strong and how determined we should be, and about what the examples are of where it succeeded and where it did not succeed. Most of the time, if you have a little bit of coordination internationally, it has more chances to succeed—if the donors coordinate their intervention. This is not always easy, as you know, because we don't pursue the same objectives among donors.

[Translation]

Canada has several ways of expressing its identity, if I may say so, and of acting to achieve the desired results, the results that you, Parliament, the government and Canadians want us to achieve.

Quite often, however, we don't refer to this as conditionality because the use of this word could hinder our ability to engage in a dialogue.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

We're going to have to go Madame Picard.

[Translation]

Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): In your presentation, Mr. Archambault, you observed that CIDA was seeking to strengthen democratic, governmental and electoral institutions, to promote the development of civil society and to increase the competence and accountability of the public sector.

I want you to understand that I have nothing against these objectives, but I have to wonder if they really correspond to CIDA's mandate. I for one believe that CIDA's mandate should focus on humanitarian aid and that the Agency should follow up on projects to ensure that they are carried out, that they achieve the desired results and that the money invested contributes to the development and independence of different regions.

I have to wonder if this particular component of your mandate, namely to build democratic institutions and to monitor elections, shouldn't perhaps be turned over to another department, maybe External Affairs or National Defence. Based on what I've learned about CIDA's mandate or purpose, these matters are not your responsibility. The money invested in projects of this nature comes out of the ODA budget for countries where the need for money is real.

• 1650

Mr. Michel Archambault: We could debate the meaning of humanitarian aid. On the one hand, it means providing food, water and shelter to starving children and adults. It means something far more immediate and important to CIDA. When earthquakes or natural disasters strike, or even when conflicts erupt in these countries, CIDA springs into action to provide emergency humanitarian relief.

According to the surveys, Canadians feel strongly about this particular kind of assistance provided by CIDA. A relatively large percentage of Canadians continue to support CIDA's efforts in this area.

However, sustainable development is based on more than humanitarian aid in the narrow sense of the word. Moreover, I think you yourselves have embraced a broader definition of the term.

CIDA provides assistance with a view to supporting sustainable development and to ensuring economic prosperity for people, that is ensuring that they receive a minimum income, and the easing of trade restrictions in developing countries. We promote private sector development in developing countries because freer trade will help these countries to develop and grow.

Canada adheres to these economic principles and feels that they can be adapted to work in other countries. That's why CIDA does more than just intervene to satisfy basic human needs, such as health care, basic education, housing and sanitation. Its activities extend to involvement in governance projects.

Why is CIDA involved in this area? Because at some point, the governments of these countries must become representative and accountable to the people.

Consider the example of one country in which we intervened on taxation matters. Some people had expressed an interest in taxation reform. Others, however, wondered what taxation even was and were concerned that the government was preparing to impose harsh measures. Transparency in the taxation process means that a government has an obligation to be accountable and honest, to redistribute wealth and to make every effort to ensure that more of the country's population supports it's economic activities.

Obviously, we don't necessarily assist all countries with taxation matters. Some countries, however, did express the political will to initiate change and we jumped on the opportunity to share our expertise on the subject with these governments and to help them put in place more transparent mechanisms. For the first time, taxpayers could refer to a document that explained their taxes to them . No longer were they told: "We'll fix that for you." We had a hand in establishing a more responsible system of government.

A more responsible system of government translates into economic growth and a reduction in poverty, which benefits the poor. We don't focus on this particular area in all countries, but we do intervene, when asked to do so and when Canada's politic interests warrant, to share our expertise on certain matters.

Ms. Pauline Picard: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): I found your comments very interesting. I apologize for not arriving on time to hear the first presentation. The reason is that we were receiving today the choir from the Accueil Bonneau shelter. This vocal group is very much in demand throughout the province.

• 1655

Ms. Pauline Picard: And internationally as well.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Indeed. As you can see, there are people in need right here at home.

I was especially interested in hearing what Mr. Dottridge and Mr. Baranyi had to say, because Mr. Axworthy's speech to the UN had worried me. In my view, he was putting human security before the UN's primary commitment. I was wondering if international aid was about to become a kind of policing mechanism, whereas it's common knowledge that a large part of the problem is poverty and the lack of development and resources.

As I understand it, you conduct research in specific regions and try to establish a close connection between the emergence of conflicts or conflict resolution and the existence of basic material and economic conditions which lead to either situation.

Is that in fact what you do?

Mr. Tim Dottridge: It's one of the things we do, but by no means the only thing. IDRC does not get involved in research or in other fields in countries where a conflict is raging or where total instability prevails. It's not worth it for us. Therefore, we do not intervene in all of the countries that you saw on the map for the purpose of lending our assistance.

In some situations, assisting research gives all stakeholders an opportunity to get together, to focus on a particular problem more calmly than would otherwise have been possible and to examine the same data. Sometimes, the mere fact of agreeing on the figures brings about a resolution of the conflict. Stephen could no doubt give you some examples. In some cases, IDRC-funded projects fall into this category. One project to which we are devoting a considerable amount of energy doesn't even involve Africa. The project in question brings together Israeli and Palestinian researchers to discuss the use of a water table shared by the two territories. That's only one example.

There is also considerable optimism where Africa is concerned. Unfortunately, I don't have specific details, but I could get that information for you, if you're interested. Before coming to this meeting, I received a brief message from my colleague, the Director General of our Nairobi office, informing us that CIDA had financed a brief meeting between Hutu and Tutsi researchers the previous week. Sometimes, research is one way of bringing people together to discuss highly complex issues. We always set the ground rules before discussions can be entered into. For example, people must leave their weapons behind.

Sometimes we can see the potential for conflict and we offer our assistance, even though IDRC's primary objective is human development. Sometimes, either because of our good judgement or because we are in the right place at the right time, when a conflict begins to brew, we are able to step in and help bring about its resolution.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Carroll.

• 1700

Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Dottridge and Mr. Baranyi, I wonder if the committee could have copies of your opening remarks. I would appreciate it.

Mr. Tim Dottridge: Sure. Could we send them tomorrow, perhaps?

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Certainly.

Mr. Tim Dottridge: We're dealing with fairly scribbled notes.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: I've listened carefully, and you have answered a number of my original questions, but I wonder if you would comment on the whole issue of the population growth in Africa and how that's factoring in.

I know Ms. Scrimshaw mentioned—and I'm not sure if I got it right—a 2.6% population growth. When you look at a country like Mali, where 50% of the population is under the age of 15, and at the impact of the demographics there, I would be interested to hear your insights and analysis of what you think are the—I struggle for the correct word—cultural or socio-religious streams impacting there.

Mr. Tim Dottridge: Boy, that's a tough one.

We do not, at the moment, fund any particular research on population issues, but as you say, they actually address many of the issues that come up. One of the reasons we've paid special attention in the last couple of years and in fact are going to increase our attention to what I was calling “youth livelihoods” is that this is an enormous population cohort, if you like, coming through.

I'm far from being an expert on this matter—we could probably send you over something better, or maybe CIDA has it—but I think there are relatively good signs in terms of overall population growth rates, even for Africa. You mentioned 2.6%, but as you know, we've been up above 3% in many countries.

So I think there is a positive side to that, but there's no doubt that the speed of population increase is a major factor touching on many of the problems we've dealt with here. The type of infrastructure you have to build, including schools and clinics, just to take care of that increase, is extraordinary.

As we know, and as some of the indicators you heard earlier show, Africa is not starting from a situation where things are at a satisfactory equilibrium. It's starting from way behind. So population growth is a major problem.

In terms of the cultural factors, first of all, with regard to economic and social factors, I think it's clear, both for Africa and for other developing countries, that it has been an aspect of social security that families have tended to see the need to have six or seven children. Certainly in the village in Morocco where I did research, that was absolutely the right way to go. If one of your children could get a civil service job, you were made for life. So with seven children, you had a better chance than with two.

We're not talking high-level; if the people were well off, it's because they had access to credit at harvest time, and somebody in town could get it for them. They needed that.

So there are all kinds of economic and social factors we know of that have tended to push for that, although all of the questions of insecurity are not playing the same way. They are actually probably encouraging people to maintain their family size.

In terms of the cultural factors, I think they're more economic than social. Although many cultures love to have large families, really, we've seen from the positive trend I mentioned to you that it is in fact amenable to economic and social indicators. As people have access to a means of family planning and see it's in their interests to perhaps have fewer children, that will happen. That will follow.

• 1705

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Thank you.

Monsieur Archambault, where do you see the successes and failures, and could you delineate those within past CIDA efforts as they relate to the population question in Africa?

Mr. Michel Archambault: I have to be balanced here. I may need some help.

My first reaction is to be as desperate as you appear to be in your own question. Adding to your fear, I would say that for the first time in the last 40 years, where there has been a steady progress in longevity or life expectancy in Africa, there is now a declining life expectancy because of AIDS.

Three teachers a day die of AIDS in Zambia. What do you do with the kids who are going to go to school tomorrow if there are no teachers? Reproduction is a very natural thing, but at the same time, the limit on the resources is increasing in many ways.

The enormous amount of progress has been outlined and highlighted by people from, say, UNICEF, on the question of population and children. They do say that over the last 40 years, there has been enormous progress, but the growth of population has made the progress less apparent. There are more people, and therefore more poor. If you look at the percentage of poor people, it's less, but there are more poor in absolute numbers.

Where do we have successes? On population, frankly, I'm not an expert. I cannot tell you we had this tremendous success here and there, but I can certainly say that in mother and child care, we did have very good projects.

Did it have an impact on the overall situation? From Canada alone, probably not. Development assistance by the donor countries? I would say yes. But for the whole of Africa, Canada is too small a player. You've seen it, and the Prime Minister has mentioned it. When the aid program has gone from $3.1 billion in 1992 to $1.9 billion last year, obviously we cannot claim to be an important player any more. We have to struggle.

If you remember, back in the seventies we used to like to be collaged with the Norways and the Swedens, but we're not in that category any more. Therefore, we certainly have less impact than we had in the past. On the other hand—well, this is a civil servant answering your question—I can tell you that because we have less money, we have been forced to go for real results.

So there has been no study of whether we now reach better results than when we had more money. In my opinion, yes, because we are much more stringent about putting the money where we can have real successes.

[Translation]

I don't have the figures to back me up. I don't know if we can produce them.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: It's fortunate that our colleague has left.

Mr. Michel Archambault: I don't know if we have any statistics on our greatest accomplishments. I can't recall seeing any. Perhaps Sandelle would care to respond further.

[English]

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: I wanted to add one thing. Many African countries over the last few years, since even the mid-eighties, have been experiencing growth rates of 4% and 5%, which is quite respectable. The problem is, when you measure that against the population growth rate, it's very difficult to keep up. There's the cost in infrastructure, and social services, and trying to find employment. In many countries, at least 45% to 50% of the population is under 15, and AIDS is compounding it.

So we have to find ways to double the growth rate and at the same time reduce the birth rate. My own view is that one of the ways to do that is to invest in education, particularly the education of girls. Studies show there is a correlation between that and family planning.

• 1710

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: You started to answer my question. Canada is a minor player. How can you combine your efforts with those of NGOs and other countries? I can cite examples of local or regional development projects in Quebec and Canada in which investments were made, but where the desired results were not achieved because a strategy had not been formulated. It's important to set priorities and to keep a record of positive results. How does your organization proceed?

Mr. Michel Archambault: While Canada may be a minor player, its contribution is by no means insignificant. In fact, quite the opposite is true. As you know, that's why our efforts are appreciated. We don't have any ulterior motives.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: We don't have a history as a colonial power.

Mr. Michel Archambault: We have objectives, but no ulterior motives. People recognize that our actions are transparent.

Aid efforts are coordinated on several levels, including the level of major international agencies. The World Bank, the United Nations and the OECD in Paris are all coordinating bodies. Our representatives to these organizations coordinate wide-ranging visions of international development.

Each one of our embassies and each of our programs play a role in this coordination effort. In every country in which we are involved, CIDA representatives who are attached to the embassy and who are responsible for local program follow-up meet with their counterparts from France, Holland, Germany, the United States and other major donor countries. They sit down to discuss the problems encountered in that particular country, along with the important issues and requests received.

One example that comes to mind is Egypt. Every week, representatives of donor countries hold a least one meeting to coordinate their efforts. We act in concert with UN agencies, as well as with representatives of the United Nations Development Program, UNICEF and the World Bank. The same scene plays out in the Palestinian territories and in the countries of the African sub- Sahara. Our discussions are extensive.

Occasionally, the host countries may be little worried over the dialogue going on because they may feel their interests are being compromised. For this reason, we always ask that representatives of the country be invited to these meetings, even though they don't always attend.

Let me relate to you one very important event that recently took place at the World Bank.

[English]

The World Bank has just started a major push for coordination through what is called the coordination development framework, or CDF. Mr. Wolfensohn himself, the president of the World Bank, has really pushed it.

The basic principle is to put the country in the driver's seat.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: I like that.

Mr. Michel Archambault: We're trying to arrange it so that the recipient country spearheads the coordination effort. However, getting back to your previous question, Ms. Lalonde, for this to happen, countries must be properly governed. Therefore, we need to help them learn to conduct their affairs. Sometimes, we need to show them that there are different ways of governing and help them to chose the way best suited to their needs.

[English]

Even in Canada, as you know, drivers in Quebec are not drivers in the west. There are many ways of driving.

If we're telling them there are so many models, and to please take the driver's seat, it may be only in five years that they're going to feel empowered enough to do that. But we have to push for that.

• 1715

Canada is strongly behind the initiatives of the World Bank, and always has been, but it's a renewed push for that, and we're very much behind that.

[Translation]

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Certainly we must carry out aid programs in Africa. These programs are a reflection of our diplomatic and political influence, and our values as a society are an important consideration. Let me briefly give you two examples.

[English]

First of all, on Nigeria, I think Ms. Augustine was there with the Prime Minister and heard firsthand from the Nigerians how much they appreciated the very important role Canada played in putting and maintaining pressure on the Abacha regime. For a long time we were out alone, but we used our influence within the Commonwealth to generate a constituency that said this is not acceptable, and we saw what happened.

Another example on the political front is Angola. Unfortunately, I should have added this when Mr. Martin was here and when he was talking about levers. Canada is now chairing the Angola sanctions committee of the UN Security Council. That committee, as well as the one on Liberia, has been relatively ineffective. Since Canada has taken it over under the chairmanship of Ambassador Fowler, we've put some teeth into this committee.

Ambassador Fowler has travelled extensively in the region and in Europe. We've constituted two panels to look at how the conflict in Angola is being fueled through illegal trade in diamonds and the oil dimension. We are now using this basically to put pressure on countries, non-state actors, and the private sector to play a responsible role. So there again, it's Canada using its influence bilaterally and multilaterally to have a positive impact.

Sorry, I was a bit long on that.

The Chair: No, that's fine.

We're in international development, and we're looking for human security. I understand that we're doing some good work. You're talking about coordinated efforts, but when you talk about coordinated efforts, are you talking about different countries giving hunks of money to one NGO, and are those in fact being audited? I understand we've had financial problems with them accounting with the same chunk of money to each country. I don't know if that's true or not.

You've given us the upside on what we're doing. We know we need more money, but we also know we need to continue to spend our money in better ways. Do you see a link between international development to enhance the opportunities for human security? In what areas can we work and be more effective? We like to have these hearings. However, I think at the end of it all we'd like to think perhaps we've made a difference.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Did you pre-empt my question?

The Chair: Actually, I'll turn it over to Ms. Augustine. She'll think about it.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): First of all, I want to say thank you for the presentation, the preparation, and the wonderful up-to-date map of Africa, with the names of the countries in 1999. Usually when you pick up a map, you see different names on it.

As you were talking, I kept trying to see where we work or intervene or partner around the issue of refugees, displaced people, migration, movement of people from one border to the next, how that's happening and what resources we have working in that area, what partners or what partnerships we share in that.

• 1720

Mr. Michel Archambault: If you allow us, for that question, particularly of the refugees, and coming back also to your question, I would invite Madame Barbara Brown, the regional director for the Great Lakes, which comprises Burundi, Rwanda, the two Congos, Cameroon, Gabon, and Chad, to respond. The specific problem of the refugees is very pertinent to this.

The Chair: Very good. Thank you.

Ms. Barbara Brown (Regional Director, Central Africa and Great Lakes Program, Canadian International Development Agency): First of all, generally in this area, I think we coordinate very strongly with Canadian NGOs, local NGOs, and UN organizations.

Madam Chair, maybe this would touch a little bit on your question, because we're working to coordinate, but there's still a lot to be done.

I'm sure you're aware of the office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, which was put in place in the UN system some five years ago in fact to deal with the issue of better coordination for refugees within the UN system and amongst the specialized agencies. We've just sent a senior Canadian to work as a deputy in that office. As a general principle, we work very hard to coordinate our efforts.

In the area of the Great Lakes, there is a huge number of both internally displaced people and refugees from one country to the other. So if you look at countries like Burundi, the eastern part of the Congo, and all around the periphery of Tanzania, there are constant movements of people both displaced from their own villages, within their own country, and then moving from the Congo into Zambia, now moving from Burundi back into Tanzania. We had them moving from Tanzania going home to Burundi. So it's a huge movement of populations, and actually to track them is a real challenge.

We work at many levels. We support the International Committee of the Red Cross to work in those areas. We put money directly into the consolidated appeals of the UN, but we also work through some very effective Canadian NGOs—OXFAM-Québec, CARE Canada, CECI—who have been working for years with communities in those areas. So when situations of conflict begin, they're forced to work not with communities any more but with refugees in the camps.

So we attempt to ensure that we're both working at a very basic level with our own Canadian NGOs, but also supporting the international effort and in a very coordinated way.

I'm not sure whether I'm answering your question. I still see a bit of puzzlement on your face.

Ms. Jean Augustine: I was trying to probe whether we're into any resettlement of individuals who, say, have moved from one country into another because of conflict—for example, the Sierra Leone situation, where people are scattered all around the neighbouring countries. Are we in some way working at the movement of people back into their own country now that there are some peace-building efforts? I wonder if CIDA is in there, and how we are working not only in Sierra Leone but in other instances you mentioned.

Ms. Barbara Brown: I'm not responsible for that area, Sierra Leone, but Rwanda is a perfect example of that. After we tried to have the effort around the multinational force, which wasn't particularly successful, when the camps were dismantled, refugees began streaming back into Rwanda. This is where the Government of Rwanda appealed to Canada and said, “This is going to create a huge problem for us because in fact we will have Hutu refugees coming back to their communities and discovering that their houses have been taken over by Tutsis, and this is going to erupt again.” We made a huge commitment to do a lot of construction of houses within Rwanda to help resettle the refugees, in fact to help resettle the Tutsis who had moved into the refugees' houses, so that the refugees could go back into their own houses.

So, yes, that is one instance, and I'm sure there are many other instances of this kind of situation.

Michel, I'm not up to date on Sierra Leone.

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Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Perhaps I could say something. Louis Guay, the deputy director responsible for Sierra Leone, is with me as well, so he could perhaps add to this.

We would not want to be encouraging a large-scale resettlement, a return to Sierra Leone, until the security conditions permit their safe return.

We are trying to do two things right now. First of all, we are trying to ensure safe and unhindered humanitarian access to the people who are still in Sierra Leone in areas that have been cut off by the rebels over the last year or so. So that is very much a priority.

Secondly, with respect to these issues, you really do have to take a regional approach. We all know the impact that the problem of Sierra Leone has had on countries such as Guinea and, to a lesser extent perhaps, Côte-d'Ivoire. The refugees have moved in, and that's been a tremendous drain on the national budget of Guinea in terms of providing security, even if UN organizations look after shelter and food, etc.

So one of the things we've done in coordination with the World Bank and other like-minded donors is to provide $3 million to Guinea basically to help them meet these additional costs.

Mr. Michel Archambault: We have supported them with $3 million in order for them to be able to devote a little of their own resources to that.

Can I add also the example of Canada playing a role in the Middle Eastern process with the refugee working group? There, obviously, the question of the refugee is the question of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, also with the participation of the others.

Canada has been given the gavel for the refugee working group, and Foreign Affairs, with the assistance of CIDA, has been very active over the last four years, while peace was brought to a standstill, to keep the flame alive so that all the participants in the region would keep talking about the refugee issues. To involve academics, to try to develop this idea that there will be a refugee problem...let's keep studying the question, let's keep talking about the question, let's look at possible solutions, even if the solutions are going to be determined by the two negotiating.

A very small example of families that returned to Gaza is the Canada Camp example. People were stranded in Egypt when the peace was established between Egypt and Israel, and some Gazaians were stranded in Egypt. Little by little we brought them back to Gaza with the help of Kuwait. Kuwait put up a little money, we put up a little money, and we pushed on the Israelis, we pushed on the Palestinians to make sure those families were reunited. Small examples...but determination.

The Chair: Thank you. As I said, we came together today to focus on an area. So I'm wondering, since you are the experts, if you would mind submitting to us perhaps suggestions, both geographical and topical, on where we could do a study that would perhaps end up having positive results.

Do you have the time? Shall we do this now? I'll leave this to the committee. Do people have other commitments?

A voice: When do you want to do this?

The Chair: Now would be good. Just make it brief.

Mr. Stephen Baranyi: Perhaps I'll start the ball rolling on this very difficult question. Making choices is always tough. We feel that although it's tempting to cast your net widely and try to encompass all of the issues under the very broad human security agenda, we would indeed encourage you to focus on a few issues where Canada can make a difference.

The reintegration and resettlement of refugees and internally displaced persons is certainly a priority issue for us. We fund a number of applied research initiatives on this issue in sub-Saharan Africa. I'd be happy to share that information.

The principle, the reason why we focus on that question, the reason why we highlight post-war peace-building and governance in some context as issue sets, although we wouldn't advocate ignoring the crises and turning our backs on countries, societies, and conflicts in which there doesn't seem to be a hope right away, we certainly advocate supporting success. That is why we are recommending that you look at cases of relatively successful post-war consolidation.

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The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Michel Archambault: Maybe I can add some ideas. I will support what my colleagues will say, because I know what they will say.

The Chair: Then why don't we just let them say it.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Michel Archambault: I want to say something else as well.

The Chair: All of this support makes me think we need to scratch a little bit beneath the surface, because nothing can be this good.

Mr. Michel Archambault: Well, no, I want to add something else. I think we have to strengthen civil society in the places where there are some conflicts. We have to give confidence to the people, and we have many ways to do that: through basic education, obviously, or through encouragement to NGOs in society, and all that. This is my idea, but I also support what they're saying.

The Chair: But where?

Mr. Michel Archambault: Where? In countries that are prone to conflict or are in conflict. I'm taking the example of Zaire. Obviously, working with the government is difficult, but you should have been there last week when we had the meetings with the NGOs, and the partners of the NGOs in the private sector, the partners of CIDA. They were saying the amount of things that are happening in Zaire is incredible.

The Chair: We would have liked to have been there last week.

Mr. Michel Archambault: You wouldn't believe the things, and we support them. This is very good for strengthening things. People are living in Zaire. It's not a normal life, but there is a life in Zaire despite the war. We are also supporting their capacity to take their lives in their own hands when there's no government.

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Jill will add another idea, another option for you, and and then I will say a final word.

Ms. Jill Sinclair: Thanks, Sandelle.

I think one area that needs some focused attention from people is the question of children in armed conflict, although I suppose it's no surprise that I would say this. It's an issue that there has been a lot of musing about, but to date there has not been a lot of practical action. I think it would be very helpful indeed to have a focused study on children and armed conflict in the African context.

This actually relates to the points that have already been made by our colleagues from the IDRC, because if you're looking at reintegration and resettlement of refugees and internally displaced people, they were arguing for a real focus. Well, if you took as a subset of that the question of the children and indeed even the youth, and how you take those people out of those particular situations and reintegrate them into society, I think that would be extremely helpful.

Also, talking of strengthening—

An hon. member: [Inaudible—Editor]

[Translation]

Ms. Jill Sinclair: Yes, there's the problem of children involved in armed conflict, but they aren't the only ones affected.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: They may not be the only ones, but they are affected as well.

Ms. Jill Sinclair: The problem is more extensive because all children are affected by armed conflict. That's important to remember.

[English]

but there's also civil society. If you're really going to deal with the issue of dealing with children in conflict reintegration, you have to build civil society. It's going to be local capacities and the local NGOs that are going to be the real instruments for change in this regard.

I think a number of things do in fact come together around this theme in Africa. One could easily focus on a number of countries. There are some very positive case studies. You could look at South Africa and Mozambique, for example. You could look at countries like Ghana, Uganda, or Mali. And to the extent that it would be possible, you could try to even look at a country that's very much in transition or in the midst of conflict, like Sudan. Try to see what has worked and what hasn't worked. It gets back to Keith Martin's point a bit: where can you take preventive action to make sure you don't return to situations in which children are put in these difficult settings?

[Translation]

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: And on a closing note...

[English]

The Chair: Sandelle, I want to hear from Mr. Dottridge. If you're insisting on having the last word, you'll have to wait until Mr. Dottridge is done.

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: I didn't see his hand up.

The Chair: Oh, okay.

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Mr. Tim Dottridge: I didn't want to cause us to back away from the focus, but a major issue we're hearing is obviously that of governance. I just wanted to come in after Michel because I think it's the relationship between civil society and the more formal structures of the state that is absolutely crucial.

My most recent trip to Africa was to East Africa. I was hearing from a lot of researchers that they had misgivings that civil society might be growing up not necessarily in opposition to the state, but trying to take over some of the responsibilities and in fact not able to. Ultimately it is not able, and even sometimes with accountability relationships that are not very clear.

I would only like to add that. I think one needs to look overall at how power is exercised and how power is shared in these societies, but that does require a greater look at the formal institutions, at notions of citizenship, at those institutions that are representative. We hope to be part of that greater look in the future. I think the way forward for Africa is ultimately to bring all of that together.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Scrimshaw, you do get the final word.

Ms. Sandelle Scrimshaw: Thank you, Madam Chair.

In fact, I can link very nicely into that. While fully supporting some of these other ideas that have been put on the table, I would like to point out that another dimension of this is the role of parliaments and parliamentarians in fostering change.

For example, our experience with land mines on the human security agenda showed that change was possible where there was a coalition of forces. There's clearly a role to be played by parliaments and parliamentarians in ratifying conventions and putting in place legislation and implementing it.

One of the ideas that we had as well is what role the Canadian Parliament and Canadian parliamentarians can play to help move forward and to work with their counterparts in advancing this agenda.

The Chair: I would suppose an issue in that area would be impressing upon parliamentarians that they share in the responsibility of seeing these other things taken care of as well.

I thank you very much for being here. It was very interesting. I think many of us could have probably spent another couple of hours or longer.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: More.

The Chair: I would hope any of us can feel that we can call upon you to get more advice and clarification on an individual basis. Thank you so much for being here.

I'd like to acknowledge the receipt of answers from Ingrid Hall in response to questions on Burma from the last meeting.

Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.