April 30, 2003.
Honourable Bill Graham, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A OG2
A response to A Dialogue on Foreign Policy (DFAIT, January 2003)
by USC Canada.
USC Canada, previously known as the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada, is an international development NGO, founded in Canada in 1945. Its primary goal is to contribute to poverty eradication through two major objectives: ensuring food security for the communities with which it works, and strengthening civil society at both the local and national levels in five core partner countries in Asia and Africa - Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mali, Nepal, Timor Lorosae. USC is, along with other involved and committed Canadian NGOs, participating with DFAIT as it is developing its policy and plan of action to support sustainable development in the framework of its mandate and has an opportunity to promote the Canadian values of sustainable development. USC’s Strategic Plan also fits very well with the themes and priorities of CIDA’s new policy statement on agriculture entitle “Promoting Sustainable Rural Development through Agriculture: Canada Making a Difference in the World.” Not just in our food security activities, but in our governance and basic education activities as well. We are thinking strategically about how to put this new policy to work for our partners and beneficiaries. With higher investments in the agriculture sector from the Canadian Government we are talking with our partners and colleagues to share thoughts and ideas on working with our Canadian government in the agriculture and rural development sector.
Our own choices, priorities and expected results for aiming to promote sustainable development to eliminate poverty and contribute to a more secure, equitable and prosperous World are laid out in USC’s Global Strategy for 2003-2006 and build on several years of iterative discussions with our many partners. USC will focus globally on having greater influence in policy dialogue and advocacy as a knowledge-based authority on key subject areas and as a legitimate spokesperson for grassroots people globally. Policy dialogue is an important focus for USC Canada, and the organization is regularly consulted on a number of important issues. For instance, Agriculture Canada worked closely with USC when developing and formulating Canada’s Action Plan prior to the World Food Summit in Rome. Dr. Melaku Worede, the International Scientific Advisor for USC’s award winning Seeds of Survival (SoS) program, has served on a number of important committees. He was a director on the board of the International Plant Genetic Resource Institute (IPGRI), and is currently serving on the Project Advisory and Overseeing Committee for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Conservation Project. Dr. Melaku is a Member of the FAO Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in Food and Agriculture.
While USC implements its own programs, working with both local and international NGOs in developing countries. USC also maintains partnerships with a number of national coalitions, like YAPPIKA (Indonesia), and regional networks, such as the South Asia Network on Food, Ecology, and Culture (SANFEC), Participatory Ecological Land-Use Management (PELUM, southern Africa), Réseau Africain Pour le Développement Intégré (RADI, western Africa), and the West Africa Rural Foundation (WARF). These partnerships help to maximize the organization’s impact, expanding the reach of its programming while at the same time strengthening local capacity and limiting administrative and overhead costs. In addition to these, USC Canada’s international partners include several members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (i.e. the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)), as well as organizations like the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Program for Arid Land Crops (IPALAC). USC also maintains a healthy working relationship with the national governments of all partner countries, in particular working with national learning and research institutes.
USC Canada works with a variety of partners in Canada as well. Some of the Canadian NGO/INGOs currently working with USC include Solidarité Canada Sahel, CUSO, the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA), Engineers without Borders, Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group, formerly RAFI), and the International Development Research Center (IDRC). Partnerships have been established with several Canadian academic institutions as well, including the University of Guelph, McGill University, Carleton University, Ottawa University.
The USC partnership also aims to strengthen civil society through improved governance, more democratic development and greater respect for gender and human rights. While the USC Indonesia program has some very effective sustainable agriculture and organic farming projects, the majority of the work is focused on education and training in civil and legal rights, democratic development, peace building and conflict resolution. USC/SATUNAMA Indonesia is known throughout the country for its work with community leaders, local government officials, and NGO activists in democratic development and has developed a training centre in Yogyakarta for this purpose. USC Canada also acts as executing agency for the development of an NGO umbrella group called Yappika, which supports smaller Indonesian NGOs to develop advocacy and participatory capacity. USC takes an overall integrative approach to gender and development, while at the same time stressing the importance of women-focused programming. All our programs ensure that women, as well as men, are involved in planning and implementation of projects and programs. Gender equity policy dialogue with partners is part of our project guidelines and particular emphasis is placed on education for girls and women within USC programming. All research and surveys conducted by USC include gender-disagreggated data. USC also implements programs specifically to promote the rights of women; an example of this is our Acid Survivors' project in Bangladesh which responds to one of the most heinous aspects of violence against women by providing emergency medical care to acid attack victims.
The USC partnership will also work to promote the rights and provide special protection for marginalized children and adolescents experiencing exploitation, abuse and discrimination. USC Bangladesh undertakes extensive rights-based programming, including a nationally-recognized Adolescent Development Program, which not only enhances reproductive health for girls and boys, but provides basic education which leads to increased knowledge and incomes. This program could be expanded on a South Asia regional basis over the next three years, with an emphasis on prevention of child trafficking.
The USC partnership will enhance global programming and achieve strategic priority results as well as additional development results through its integration of three cross-cutting themes: Gender, Innovative Approaches and Technology, HIV/AIDS.
The USC partnership explores/assesses potential business development opportunities within current or in new areas of strategic importance.
The USC partnership will develop its structures and guiding policies and provide efficient, effective and accountable governance and management nationally and internationally.
Questions for Discussion
The 1995 Policy Review and Since
1. Which values and interests bear most fundamentally on Canada's foreign policy? How can Canada's foreign policy better reflect the concerns and priorities of Canadians?
We should have a clearly-stated and publicized foreign aid policy which reflects our Canadian values. Canadians want to see this policy reflect their values of multiculturalism, global governance, the promotion of human dignity and security and the realization that Global interest is our own self-interest, social justice and strong Global democracy.
2. Amid recent global changes, should Canada continue to endorse a "three pillars" approach to its foreign policy objectives, or should the current balance be adjusted?
Canada’s foreign policy objectives are balanced and we need to continue to keep our independence within a global framework of co-existence. The Canadian values and culture we shall continue promoting could however be better defined.
3. Canada is a member of many international organizations, including the G8, NATO, the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Arctic Council. Should our participation in any of these be strengthened, or adjusted?
In order to keep developing its Global conscience, Canada should continue to be part of a dynamic framework of partnerships of exchange, reflexion and action established throughout the World. It is important that Canada both strengthen and increase its participation in all international organizations especially those organizations that address global concerns and promote security, democracy, human rights, sustainable economic development, the reduction of inequailty, and the reduction of militarism.
Security
4. In promoting the security of Canadians, where should our priorities lie? Should Canada give a higher priority to military combat operations? To sectors such as intelligence gathering and analysis? Or should we focus on broader security measures, such as combating environmental degradation and the spread of infectious disease? What should be our distinctive role in promoting global security?
Canada should do more to address the conditions that give rise to conflict and insecurity beyond, and even within , its borders. Endemic poverty and climate change are at forefront of our preoccupations. Protection of the environment is crucial to the future health of Canadian people and to the maintenance of the Earth of which we occupy a great amount. We have a responsibility to protect the environment here and encourage other nations to do so.
As we work with our partners to strengthen civil society through improved governance, more democratic development and greater respect for gender and human rights through dialogue and by funding research into problems of the environment and poverty, we need to counteract the erosion of freedom and human rights in our own country.
5. How does the military best serve Canada's foreign policy objectives: though national and continental defense; combat missions in support of international coalitions; peacekeeping; all of the above?
We evidently support national defense, but also would advocate for support for international coalitions supported by the UN, peace keeping.
6. Should Canada do more to address conditions giving rise to conflict and insecurity beyond our borders? If so, where?
Canada should be a protagonist in the promotion of social justice and human rights.
Prosperity
7. How should Canada take advantage of its location in North America to increase prosperity while promoting our distinctive identity?
Canada is a unique country with vast resources and land at a time when those are lacking elsewhere. Signing the Kyoto Accord was an important first step that we support. We have to use our resources more wisely and take global leadership balancing prosperity with living within our means.
8. What should Canada do to help make the benefits of globalization more widely shared within and among all countries?
Globalization has the potential for great good. However, Canada should work to ensure that we are improving the benefits of globalization on the poor as many people in the poorest countries cannot benefit from globalization, or anything else, until very basic health, education, water, and other social services are widely available.
We need to fare better with our Aid budget. Canada's record on international aid in the last decade has been well below the target of 0,7%. Recently announced increases will only bring Canada's aid to about 0.31% of GNP by 2010 which does not even bring Canada back to the 1995 level, and is less than halfway to the 0.7% international target reached by several other countries.
Working with other middle powers that share Canada’s philosophy of human security is an excellent way of keeping the issues that relate to globalization on the agenda when other states become distracted by their own interests. Multilateralism of this sort is also an effective way of reinforcing each other’s moral compass when other, more unilateral, interests threaten to take up all of the attention.
9. Should Canada focus on cultivating new economic partnerships with emerging powers such as China, India, Mexico and Brazil?
We need to foster as many equally productive ties as we can, new markets are important to expand Canada’s economy. However, the forging of new economic relationships should work to nurture our mutual economies, but also the social and democratic institutions that help ensure human rights and equalities are protected for all of a country’s citizens.
Values and Culture
10. Are values such as human rights, democracy, respect for diversity and gender equality ones that Canada should continue to advocate in all parts of the world? If so, what are the best ways of doing this?
As we strive to promote sustainable development to eliminate the fundamental barriers to human development and contribute to a more secure, equitable and prosperous World, we believe that human rights, democracy, the respect for diversity and gender equality should be advocated and they are part of USC’s Mission/Vision. It is essential that Canada should support such values and we should ensure that they are upheld here as well as promoting them to others. We have to secure our commitment to these ideals in Canada and first ensure that the celebration of diversity remains a core component of Canadian life.
Particularly Canada’s lead role in gender equity should continue and be promoted. Canada can play a vital role in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, to name only those two startling examples, sharing our values and making our experience benefit women.
11. Should Canada seek out opportunities for fostering global inter cultural dialogue and interfaith understanding?
As a non-denominational Canadian organization made up of people from all faiths and from various countries around the world promoting social justice, fostering mutual cooperation and ensuring people develop their potential, USC Canada certainly exemplifies this within its Partnership. The conflict resolution work and promotion of democracy and good governance put forward and carried-out by our partners in Indonesia, is only one example. There is also the recognition of the important role schools play in promoting religious tolerance as our Adolescent Development Program curriculum adjusts itself to relate to Bangladeshis from all faiths.
To impress Canada as an authority influencing policy dialogue and advocacy and as a recognized knowledge-based authority and a legitimate spokesperson for grass-roots people globally we need to inform and involve Canadians in discussions that lead to improved knowledge and a better understanding, strengthened research, dialogue and advocacy capacity to contribute to the discourse on issues relevant to us globally.
In these times of religious and ethnic tension I think we should make people benefit from our experience and that we can grow stronger asa Country by recognizing and advocating this strength.
12. What are the best means for Canada to make its culture and experience known abroad?
We must first keep and nurture our own identity.
Encouraging in our children and our youth the interest, understanding and respect for the many cultures and experiences that make up the peoples of Canada is a strong investment in Canada’s commitment to sharing our own past and culture around the world through a process of mutual respect and interest.
The government could work more to get Canadians interested in public awareness programs within Canada of what Canadians are doing and provide the means for Canadian talent to be seen and known by the World.
Concluding Question
13. Please respond to the paper as a whole.
For it to represent our choices and priorities for the future, Canada’s foreign policy should improve its planning and coordination with CIDA to promote the values and interests of Canadians. For greater effectiveness, there should be greater coherence between our aid and foreign policy (CIDA’s programs and Canada’s trade-environment-investment agenda), and better coherence on the message to bring Canadians.
Canada must continue to support international bodies that promote peace and more equal relations between nations as well as conflict resolution.
We must find ways to involve Canadians more and understand their responsibility to help around the World.
It is in the interest of Canada to do everything possible to increase democracy and human rights abroad, to decrease inequalities, particularly in the economic area, to reduce poverty, and promote education. |
