THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE
TO END POVERTY
AND INJUSTICE
CCIC’S 10-POINT AGENDA IN BRIEF
Thanks are due to all the CCIC members and staff who contributed so much time, expertise and
enthusiasm to the development of this 10-Point Agenda. The Council is also grateful for the important
contributions made by a number of outside experts and consultants. CCIC remains responsible for any
errors.
All or part of this document may be reproduced and used for nonprofit purposes, provided that CCIC is
credited as the source. Use of any part of this document for commercial purposes is forbidden without prior
written permission from CCIC.
For additional information, contact:
Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC)
1 Nicholas Street, Suite 300, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 7B7
613-241-7007 • [email protected] • www.ccic.ca
ISBN: 978-1-896622-53-8
The Global Challenge to End Poverty and Injustice: A Canadian 10-Point Agenda also published in French
as: Le défi mondial d’éliminer la pauvreté et l’injustice : un programme canadien en 10 points.
All rights reserved.
© Canadian Council for International Co-operation 2008
NOTE: This is a précis of a longer paper, The Global Challenge to End Poverty and Injustice: A Canadian
10-Point Agenda, that includes more expansive arguments for each agenda point, exemplary project
descriptions, sources, resources for further reading, and more detailed policy recommendations for both
government and civil society organizations. The ten points and the complete recommendations are also
available as separate documents.
This publication was prepared by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC) with the
financial support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Cover photo of women: Oxfam – Rajendra Shaw
Cover photo bottom right: © CIDA / ACDI
1
PROMOTE WOMEN’S
RIGHTS AND EQUALITY
ACCELERATE ACTION ON
CANADA’S INTERNATIONAL
COMMITMENTS TO WOMEN’S
EQUALITY BY PROMOTING
AND INVESTING IN WOMEN’S
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC,
AND CULTURAL RIGHTS.
CANADA’S ACTIONS MUST
INCLUDE SIGNIFICANT SUPPORT
FOR WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS,
AS WELL AS EXPLICIT ATTENTION
TO GENDER INEQUALITIES
ACROSS ALL INTERNATIONAL
INITIATIVES IN DIPLOMACY, AID,
TRADE AND DEFENCE.
© CIDA/ACDI Photo: Pierre St-Jacques, Senegal
WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
Women and men are equal. International conventions
signed by most of the world’s nations acknowledge
that fact and commit them to making it a reality. Yet,
women’s equality is denied on a daily basis around the
world, from Canada to Pakistan. Whether it is access
to education or health care, security of the person,
an economic livelihood, or the right to hold property
and take part in political decision-making, the situation
of women continues to fall short of international
human rights standards.
The result? Worldwide, women account for 70% of
adults living in poverty. Of all uneducated adults, 2/3
are women. Of children who don’t attend school, 2/3
are girls. Women earn 20% less than men, occupy
the most precarious jobs and are most vulnerable to
exploitation. Women aged 15 to 44 are more likely
to be maimed, or die, from male violence than from
cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined.
As for political influence, only 16% of the world’s
elected officials are women. The list goes on, but
the picture is clear.
This is not just a global human rights crisis. Gender
inequality is also a leading cause of poverty. Inequality
denies women the chance to shape and contribute
to social, political and economic development. Ending
poverty requires ending gender discrimination. This
requires supporting women’s active roles in development and democracy – as survivors, grassroots leaders,
educators, workers, mobilizers, and politicians.
|1
THE MANY FACES OF DISCRIMINATION
WHAT WE CAN DO
All women experience inequality. But for many women,
discrimination has more than one face. Women from
Indigenous communities, women with disabilities, and
widows face special difficulties accessing services and
participating in decision-making. Since not all women
share the same experience or interests, strategies to end
discrimination must take into account the effects of
race, class, sexuality, ability, and nationality in addition
to gender.
There is reason for optimism. The 20th century spawned
a powerful global women’s movement dedicated to
the cause of equality. It helped achieve international
agreements that set standards, such as the Beijing
Platform for Action, against which to hold national
governments accountable. These are great achievements. But countries still fail to live up to their promises.
More needs to be done.
Girls and young women bear a special burden. They
are more likely to be aborted or die as babies, subjected to genital mutilation or early marriage. They
are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, poor nutrition, a
heavy domestic workload, and less likely to be in
school than their brothers. Such a poor start on life
has enormous negative consequences for them,
their communities and, of course, their own children.
Sexual and physical violence against women, trafficking
of women and girls, and rape as a weapon of war
leave a costly trail – long-term suffering, social breakdown, health care and legal costs and lost productivity.
What’s more, poor access to sexual health and
reproductive services leaves women vulnerable to
sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS,
and higher maternal mortality.
Gender inequality also rules the workplace. Women
and girls carry the lion’s share of domestic work,
from cooking to caring for the young, the elderly,
and the sick – work that is largely invisible. The pressures of a globalizing economy have created new
employment opportunities for women but the jobs
are low paid, part time and often dangerous. Globally,
in the labour market, women earn less than men,
experience greater job insecurity, and are more
vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
Poor access to education compounds women’s
inequality. Educated girls and women are not only
likely to be more productive economically, they are
also more likely to know and exercise their rights.
Finally, international conventions also commit national
governments to ensure that women’s perspectives
will be heard at all decision-making levels, from trade
to diplomacy to peace and security. The record is
dismally short of that goal.
2|
Women’s organizations have made the difference
where states have failed. Future progress depends on
continued support for their activities. Yet, too many
women human rights activists today are under threat,
or face physical violence. Worse, governments are
cutting back. Canada has slashed funding to the
women’s movement and for research and advocacy. The
international story is similar. We must reverse the trend
if we are serious about achieving gender equality.
We need to increase our efforts to make our policies
and practices sensitive to women’s rights, ensure that
our international aid spending advances gender
equality, fund women’s organizations directly and
improve our data collection to monitor progress.
Regular reporting is also essential on how much of
Canada’s assistance budget goes to support gender
equality and women’s organizations, and what our
diplomacy is doing for the same ends.
Women have called for a new United Nations agency
with the resources to advance women’s rights and
gender equality within the UN and its member states.
Action is overdue.
There is no country where girls and boys are equal
and where women’s rights have been fully realized.
It’s time for Canada and Canadians to recommit
ourselves to join with our Southern counterparts to
ensure women’s rights and equality are a reality
around the world.
2
PROMOTE HEALTH AND
EDUCATION FOR ALL
UPHOLD CANADA’S OBLIGATIONS
TO FULFIL THE RIGHTS TO HEALTH
AND EDUCATION BY ENSURING
OUR AID PROGRAMS, AS WELL
AS INTERNATIONAL FINANCE AND
TRADE POLICIES, SUPPORT THE
DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH QUALITY
HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION
SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES THAT ARE UNIVERSALLY
ACCESSIBLE, AS WELL AS PUBLICLY
FUNDED AND ADMINISTERED.
© CIDA/ACDI Photo: Greg Kinch, Bolivia
© Patrick Leclerc
|3
HEALTH AND EDUCATION ARE
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Everyone has a right to an education and to enjoy the
best physical and mental health available. Numerous
international agreements signed by almost all countries
say so. The logic is simple: good health and education
are prerequisites for ending poverty and for enjoying
all other rights.
Both save lives; education, especially of women and
girls, by its effect on citizenship, livelihood, family
formation, nutrition and child well-being; and health,
again especially for girls and women, by its direct
impact on quality of life, the capacity to learn, productivity, sexual and reproductive choice, resistance to
pandemics, longevity and reduced vulnerability to
poverty. Poverty is a cause and effect of poor health and
education. Tackling one member of this three-sided
relationship invariably means addressing the others.
Despite the pay-offs, the rights to health and education
are unrealized for too many. Some facts: Millions of
children, especially girls, have no access to school. More
than 13 million people die every year from preventable
diseases like malaria and diarrhea, largely because
they are poor. More than half a million women a year
die in childbirth, most of them unnecessarily. Two
million die every year from tuberculosis, one million
from malaria, and the staggering toll from HIV/AIDS
is 3 million deaths annually. While 40 million people
are living, often unaware, with HIV, a single example
demonstrates the links between education, health
and poverty: one half of the teachers trained each
year in Zambia are dying of AIDS.
COMPLICATIONS AND CAUSES
Gender inequality creates special barriers to health
and education for girls and women. Not only is
their right to education compromised on gender
grounds, but education systems fail to confront that
inequity directly. Health systems may overlook
the gender-specific needs of girls and women, for
sexual and reproductive health, for example, or
physical abuse.
While poverty increases vulnerability to HIV/AIDS,
the disease, in turn, deepens poverty and hampers
4|
development by robbing communities of their food
producers, parents, public servants and future leaders.
The vast majority of people affected by such pandemics, as well as chronic and non-communicable
diseases, live in developing countries, where corporate
power and interests, unfair trade practices, debt
burdens and market failures put many medicines and
health services beyond their means. Worse, market
driven research ignores the illnesses of the poor.
Finally, for years, conditions tied to loans from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank demanded “structural adjustments” that
involved cutting and privatizing public services.
Privatized health care and education accentuate
poverty and threaten the ability of states to guarantee
these essential rights to their citizens.
Today, trade agreements maintain the pressure –
favouring commercial interests over social obligations,
private property over human rights. They go so far
as to lock in rules that work against publicly funded,
universally accessible, health care and education.
WHAT WE CAN DO
Canadians enjoy and appreciate universal publiclyfunded health care and education. Our aid policies
need to reflect that, focusing resources to support
such systems in developing countries.
We need to boost our support for health systems that
meet people’s basic health needs, for the prevention
and treatment of the pandemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, for making medicines affordable
and accessible, and for supporting research into
effective prevention and care strategies. We must
also expand our support for sexual and reproductive
health and rights.
Our aid programs must support full gender equality
in education. This means resources for teacher training,
improved teachers’ salaries and for strategies to
improve access to education by the poor.
Canada also needs to take a leadership role in
exempting social services like health, education and
clean water from trade agreements.
3
PROMOTE THE RIGHT
TO FOOD AND ENSURE
SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS
FOR FOOD PRODUCERS IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
PROVIDE LEADERSHIP IN UPHOLDING THE
RIGHT TO FOOD THROUGH CANADIAN
FOREIGN POLICY, ENSURING ALL COUNTRIES,
INCLUDING THE POOREST, CAN PURSUE
DIVERSE, PRODUCER-LED AND SUSTAINABLE
AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES.
AS PART OF THIS AGENDA, MAKE SMALLSCALE AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABLE
LIVELIHOODS FOR FOOD PRODUCERS
(SMALL FARMERS, PASTORALISTS, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, FISHERS) AN AID PRIORITY,
AND ENSURE GLOBAL TRADE RULES HELP
RATHER THAN HARM SMALL PRODUCERS
AND HUNGRY PEOPLE.
THE MOST BASIC OF RIGHTS
When it comes to rights, the right to adequate food
is as basic as it gets. Hunger is caused by poverty
and powerlessness. In war, destruction of resources
and displacement of people are additional causes.
The geography of world hunger is ridden with bitter
ironies. While food is a human right, it has become
a mere commodity. Its distribution is decided by the
market, not social policy. Half the world’s hungriest are
actually food growers, most of them women. Women
are responsible for 60-80% of primary food production,
but gender inequities undermine their productivity and
the social benefit of their efforts. Poor farmers often
don’t grow enough for their own food, or earn enough
to feed themselves and their families. Countries experiencing famine may be food exporters.
Like other fundamental rights, the right to food has
witnessed brave commitments from the international
community, and has seen them fall short. In 1996,
the world’s nations promised to reduce the world’s
800 million hungry by half in a decade. Ten years later,
that number had grown, not fallen. With the world’s
population expected to increase by 2.9 billion by
2050, mostly in developing countries, and with climate
change expected to affect those countries especially,
the challenge is all the more stark.
|5
THE RIGHT TO FOOD IS NOT JUST
ABOUT AGRICULTURE
World hunger is a story about the inequities of trade
rules and the disenfranchisement of small farmers
by the global industrialization of agriculture. A market
run by vertically integrated, global agribusiness
corporations, protected by trade rules tailored to
their needs, dictates not just what a small Southern
farmer grows (often cash crops for export), but also
how she grows it and the price she receives for her
products. Sacrificed along the way is her family’s,
her community’s and her country’s right to food.
Lost, too, is the self-sufficiency that comes from
practicing sustainable agriculture using local ecological
expertise, seeds and other local inputs.
Agribusiness control extends from the seeds, fertilizers
and pesticides to shipping, processing, marketing
and distribution. Each step is an opportunity for profit.
The size of these mammoth organizations leaves even
organized farmers at a disadvantage and hampers
the development of public policies to meet basic
domestic needs. Also compromised by this concentration of corporate power are food safety, environmental
sustainability, and decent pay and working conditions
for farm workers (often women and children). Finally,
corporate interests exert undue influence over the
research agendas of international bodies like the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The industrialization of agriculture has other serious
side-effects. It leaves many developing countries
dependent for their export earnings on a very few
unprocessed commodities, like coffee, cocoa, sugar
or cotton. Land is taken out of food production to
serve export markets, though their populations
depend on local production for food. Competition
for land drives up local food prices, while prices for
export crops are beyond local control and have
steadily fallen relative to import prices. It’s a recipe
for progressive hunger and impoverishment.
Add to that bleak picture the disproportionate
impact of climate change on the South, the fact that
irrigation for industrial agriculture uses 70% of
available water to produce only 40% of the food,
and the pressure on agricultural land and food prices
from the growing demand for biofuels and biomass
energy, and the goal of food security and food
sovereignty is more elusive than ever.
6|
Finally, trade rules favour agribusiness over small
farmers. Current agreements open Southern markets
while allowing protection and unfair subsidies for
Northern agriculture. The result – dumping of subsidized Northern products in the South, undercutting and
further marginalizing local producers, and lowering
global prices.
WHAT WE CAN DO
Defending the right to food means righting the
balance of power between agribusiness and small
farmers. Canada can advocate fairer trade rules that
end unfair subsidies, preserve local markets for local
produce, and open Northern markets to Southern
producers. Our aid should favour initiatives based
on the knowledge and ecological practices of local
farmers, instead of outside technical solutions. The
infrastructural, marketing and distribution needs of
small producers should be central. In an era of global
climate change, the adaptive potential of a diversity
of practices and local experience is more important
than ever.
Policies to guarantee the right to food and sustainable
development are key to the eradication of hunger and
poverty. They must ensure the urban and rural poor
can earn a decent living, and have access to land,
water and a secure supply of seeds for food production. Members of a growing movement for Food
Sovereignty advocate local democratic control over
food and agricultural policy, promote biodiversity and
sustainable practices, and stress the importance of
states to organize food production and consumption
according to local needs. It’s an agenda Canada
should adopt.
4
BUILD GLOBAL
ECONOMIC JUSTICE
PURSUE MORE EQUITABLE
AND ACCOUNTABLE RULES FOR
INTERNATIONAL TRADE, FINANCE
AND INVESTMENT FLOWS THAT
RESPECT STATES’ OBLIGATIONS
TO PROMOTE EQUALITY AND
DEVELOP NATIONAL PLANS FOR
THE PROGRESSIVE REALIZATION
OF HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL.
PROMOTE CANCELLATION OF
THE DEBT OF THE POOREST
COUNTRIES, WHILE SUPPORTING
MEANS TO COORDINATE FAIR
AND INNOVATIVE TAXATION
APPROACHES TO FINANCE DEVELOPMENT GOALS.
© CIDA/ACDI
© CIDA/ACDI Photo: Felix Kerr
© CIDA/ACDI
|7
THE STRUCTURE OF GLOBAL INJUSTICE
WHAT WE CAN DO
It’s a lot like a 19th century debtors’ prison. Dickens
would recognize the same injustice in the current
global economic order – poor debtors prevented from
working to improve their situation, largely by a set
of rules that favour the wealthy.
Trade unions, women’s organizations and other civil
society actors have joined in a world-wide movement
to resist economic globalization that favours the rich.
They advocate a justice-based approach to the global
economy that places a priority on human rights, the
reform of international financial institutions and sustainability. Canada, while not a large country, is an
influential and wealthy player that can lead by
example and advocacy in achieving these goals.
Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars flow from
poor countries to rich ones in the form of debt
repayment, private sector profits, unfair trade practices and capital flight. That flow far exceeds the
flow of aid to the poor. From 1970 to 2002, the
poorest African countries received US$294 billion in
loans, paid back $268 billion, and still owed over
$200 billion! The result? African governments spend
$21 per person per year on debt service and a mere
$8 per person on health care, with devastating
consequences for poverty and development. Recent
commitments to forgive the debt of the poorest
nations do not go far enough. Civil society organizations estimate more than 50 countries need
immediate and full cancellation of their debt to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
These numbers reflect undue global corporate influence in the rules and structure of world trade and
investment. Codified by international agreement in the
World Trade Organization (WTO), trade rules permit
mobile global capital to exploit immobile labour,
especially women, playing one country’s workers
against another’s in a race to the bottom.
The imbalance of power is made worse by conditions
attached to loans or debt forgiveness for developing
countries. Those conditions, imposed by the IMF and
World Bank, tie the hands of governments wishing
to pursue alternative policies for domestic social and
economic development. Developing countries are
being denied the tools industrialized countries once
took for granted in developing their own economies –
protection of their agricultural sectors, fostering key
domestic industries, technology transfer, protecting
their markets from dumping of under-priced imports
and other unfair trade practices.
To compound the injustice, the rules and conditions sometimes prevent states from fulfilling their citizens’ rights
to food, education, health care, work, an adequate
standard of living, and even their freedom of expression, right to organize and democratic participation.
8|
Cancelling the debt of the world’s poorest countries is a
fundamental step. Removing conditions that hamper
locally appropriate social and economic policies is
equally critical. The mantra of “local ownership” must
move from rhetoric to reality.
Whether at the WTO or in bilateral negotiations,
trade talks should be transparent and democratically
inclusive. Canada should work to improve multilateral
governance of trade and investment and ensure states
have room to promote the rights of their citizens and
protect their environment. To this end trade agreements must be re-thought to reflect broad public
goals, not just commercial interests in market access.
Trade rules must be made development-sensitive.
They should punish unfair trade practices and promote
equity and fair trade. Trade and investment agreements should be subject to human rights impact
assessments, including gender analysis. Finally, we
need new means for financing development – ways
governments can tax and redistribute wealth and
maximize public benefits from foreign investment,
crack down on corruption and misdirection of aid
monies to overseas tax havens, and pursue new
sources of international development finance, like
the Tobin tax on currency transactions.
5
ENSURE CORPORATE
ACCOUNTABILITY
ENACT LEGISLATION THAT
REQUIRES CANADIAN CORPORATIONS OPERATING OUTSIDE
CANADA TO MEET AND BE
ACCOUNTABLE TO INTERNATIONAL
HUMAN RIGHTS, LABOUR AND
ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS IN
ALL THEIR OPERATIONS WORLDWIDE. ENSURE TRANSPARENT
CORPORATE REPORTING AGAINST
THESE STANDARDS AND MAKE
CANADIAN PUBLIC SUPPORT TO
CORPORATIONS CONTINGENT
UPON COMPLIANCE.
© CIDA/ACDI Photo: Brian Atkinson
|9
WHEN CORPORATE RIGHTS TRUMP
HUMAN RIGHTS
Economic globalization has been accompanied and
driven by the rise of transnational corporate rights and
power. At the end of the 20th century, 51 of the world’s
100 biggest economic entities, including countries,
were corporations. International trade, investment and
financial regimes all strengthen corporate “rights” at
the expense of human rights, environmental sustainability and even the power of national governments
to act in the public interest.
A state’s primary obligation to uphold the human
rights of its citizens now often plays second fiddle to
its obligations to uphold corporate rights. Given the
essential role the full exercise of human rights plays
in eradicating poverty and fostering development,
the consequences of this corporate dominance are
especially serious.
Unjust global rules and the distribution of economic
power and resources have led developing country
governments, desperate for investment and export
revenues, to cater to corporate interests over the interests of their own workers and environments. Rising
corporate power has its sidekick – corporate abuse with
state complicity. The consequences? Forcible displacement of Indigenous peoples for mining projects, toxic
waste dumping, child labour, sweatshop conditions,
suppression of trade unions and antidemocratic tactics.
Women especially pay the price.
10 |
WHAT WE CAN DO
Widespread recognition that Northern-based corporations fail to observe the same standards abroad
that they observe at home has produced no effective
countermeasures. Reliance on voluntary corporate social
responsibility has proven unworkable. A majority of
Canadians now want companies to go beyond
simply obeying laws and become fully accountable to any conduct that might undermine social or
environmental health. Globally, civil society movements are demanding mandatory, regulated corporate
accountability, at home and abroad, based on international human rights and environmental standards.
This includes independent monitoring and enforcement
of corporate compliance, with penalties for noncompliance. Conditions required by donor countries
and international financial institutions must also change.
Donors often make good governance a condition of
support, while they decry attempts by recipient countries
to regulate foreign investment and corporate behavior.
Multilateral banks support private sector operations in
developing countries while requiring little accountability
for human rights, development or environmental
impacts. Strict corporate accountability must become
the norm.
In Canada, there has been public and parliamentary
momentum for corporate accountability in the mining
and extractive sectors. And for good reason – there
is a glaring pattern of human rights and environmental
abuses in these industries globally. Given that 60% of
the world’s mining and exploration companies are
listed in Canada and the strong levels of political
and financial support the sector receives from the
government, Canadian CSOs are demanding leadership from Canada. The government must require
corporations to meet international human rights,
labour and environmental standards, and make
compliance a precondition of any public support for
their activities.
6
PROMOTE
PEACE
ENGAGE WITH CONFLICT-AFFECTED
SOCIETIES TO PROMOTE PEACE,
EMPHASIZING A TRANSPARENT,
RIGHTS-BASED, AND COHERENT
ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY. CANADIAN
POLICIES SHOULD STRENGTHEN
INTERNATIONAL NORMS AND
REGULATIONS, AS WELL AS LOCAL
CAPACITIES FOR PEACE AND PEACE
BUILDING. CANADA SHOULD FULFIL
ITS OBLIGATIONS TO INTERNATIONAL
HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN LAW BY PROTECTING
VULNERABLE PEOPLE, PARTICULARLY
CHILDREN, AND INCLUDING
SPECIAL MEASURES TO PROTECT
WOMEN AND GIRLS FROM SEXUAL
AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE.
Inter Pares Photo: Caroline Boudreau
| 11
PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
War is much more than the absence of peace. It is the
presence of grave human rights violations, a terrible
waste of human life, loss of economic wealth, degradation in environmental resources, and the destruction
of human potential. Indirect deaths from disease,
malnutrition, bad water, and lack of medical care
are ten times higher than battle-related deaths.
As Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United
Nations, has said, “Peace belongs not only to states
or peoples, but to each and every member of those
communities.” It’s an important point that demonstrates the importance of the rights of women and men,
boys and girls, in shaping how we should approach the
complexity of conflict in the 21st century.
THE CHANGING NATURE OF CONFLICT
The end of the Cold War did not produce the
expected “peace dividend”. Instead, we are in a
new era of conflict. Indeed, at the end of 2006,
no fewer than 29 armed conflicts were underway in
25 states. Ethnic, religious and neo-imperial ambitions
complicate struggles over resources, power and
borders. The new geopolitical context includes a
major shift in the locus of economic power and a
global “War on Terror” that gives special prominence
to arguments of state security.
Underlying today’s conflicts is a thriving weapons
trade that provides the small arms and light weapons
responsible for 60-90% of all deaths. While the
Ottawa Convention banned anti-personnel mines,
an international treaty on arms sales and a ban on
cluster munitions remain elusive. Progress on nuclear
disarmament has stalled.
As industrialization spreads apace in the South, and
consumption continues unabated in the North, it is not
surprising that extraction of oil, gas and minerals is
increasingly a source of conflict. An international
regime that favours corporate rights without accountability only serves to exacerbate the situation.
Human rights violations, always present in war, have
risen to new heights. The targeting of civilians, forced
displacement of populations, sexual and genderbased violence (including rape as a weapon of war),
kidnapping and conscription of child soldiers,
extrajudicial killings and disappearances are all
commonplace.
12 |
International peacekeeping has also changed. In
complex conflicts in what are described as “failed
and fragile states”, the use of force is seen to be an
acceptable option in support of externally directed
state-building that may involve strengthening state
power, regardless of citizens’ interests or potential
contributions. Such responses often entail the integration of military, humanitarian and diplomatic efforts,
with negative consequences for the last two and for
the cause of peace.
What is lost is support for local peace initiatives,
political rather than military solutions, transforming
root causes of conflict and reconciling war-torn communities. A focus on narrowly defined security and
military means has obscured the fact that mediation,
negotiation and diplomacy remain the surest, and
humanly least costly, routes to peace.
WHAT WE CAN DO
Canada needs to dramatically increase its support
for peace building, peace support and peacekeeping.
The priority must be the human rights of war-affected
civilians with special measures to protect the rights
of youth and women.
We need to support local peace processes, particularly
those involving women, and help to strengthen local
capacities for peace. We also need to strengthen our
own capacity for mediation and negotiation in support
of peace processes. And we need to support initiatives
to end impunity for war crimes, crimes against
humanity, genocide and other violations of international humanitarian law. The inclusion of youth and
women in conflict prevention, peace negotiations
and post-conflict reconstruction is a priority in a
rights-based approach to peace.
In order to ensure access to vulnerable populations,
Canada should also promote respect for humanitarian
space and principles.
Finally, Canada should take the lead in developing
an Arms Trade Treaty and a ban on cluster munitions
and holding Canadian corporations engaged in
human rights abuses in conflict zones accountable.
7
PROMOTE GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
PROTECT AND REHABILITATE THE
ENVIRONMENTAL COMMONS
AND DECREASE OUR ECOLOGICAL
FOOTPRINT WITH STRATEGIES
AND APPROACHES CONSISTENT
WITH ENDING GLOBAL POVERTY
AND REDUCING INEQUALITIES.
SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO LIVELIHOOD
FOR POOR AND VULNERABLE
PEOPLE IN HARMONY WITH A
SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT.
ENSURE CANADA MEETS ITS
OBLIGATIONS TO INTERNATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES
AND AGREEMENTS. TAKE FULL
ACCOUNT OF THE INTERESTS,
CAPACITIES AND KNOWLEDGE OF
DIVERSE PEOPLES IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES NOW AND FOR
FUTURE GENERATIONS.
| 13
A PLANETARY CRISIS AND AN
ECOLOGICAL DEBT
Disappearing and depleted fish stocks; land, air, and
watersheds contaminated with toxic wastes; forests
razed for timber and large-scale agriculture; species
extinction; soil depletion and degradation; expanding
deserts; and now a looming water crisis, global
warming and climate change: these are the legacy
of an industrial growth model of “development,”
promoted by developed countries, which now
threatens the Earth’s inhabitants and the health of
the planet.
The global movement for environmental justice
argues that industrialized countries owe a special
debt to peoples of the South for decades of resource
plundering, environmental damage, destroyed biodiversity, waste dumping and climate change. The
practices and consumption habits of the wealthiest
have fouled the global nest. While the rich have the
resources to adapt, for a time, the poor have fewer
choices. They rely directly on the environment for
food, water, building materials and fuel. Hence, they
are most affected by environmental degradation
and collapse.
Practices like industrial farming of cash crops and
forestry and mining have displaced rural populations
and made them more vulnerable than ever to resource
scarcities, from water to food. A global water crisis
is intensifying. The UN estimates over 3 billion people
will experience water shortages by 2025. As watergatherers, women and girls are especially affected –
spending four or more hours a day in search of water
at the cost of their education and other essentials.
Cash crops and resource extraction for Northern consumption often entail unsustainable practices, loss of
biodiversity and destruction of environments on which
local people depend. What follows is the loss of
food security, sustainable agriculture and traditional
medicines, and the indigenous knowledge on which
adaptation and survival depend.
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Northern energy consumption points to where the onus
of responsibility lies for climate change. Greenhouse
gas emissions per capita are highest in Australia, the
USA and Canada – twice those of the EU, 6 times
those of China and 13 times those of India. Yet, despite
the role of non-renewable energy in climate change,
86% of World Bank energy projects in 2003 were
for fossil fuels, only 14% for renewable energy.
Needless to say, reliance on market forces is partly to
blame. The market fails to recognize the ecological
and human costs of environmental damage. The
destructive practices continue and those costs are
borne by the politically powerless.
WHAT WE CAN DO
Global poverty cannot be eliminated in a context of
unsustainable environments in developing countries.
International agreements like the Kyoto Protocol on
Climate Change and the Biodiversity Convention have
set standards few countries are close to observing,
not least Canada. We must meet those standards
and go beyond them.
Our relations with developing countries, including
investment and trade, must meet the test of ecological
sustainability. We must remove barriers and
strengthen the ability and legal rights of poor people
to manage local ecosystems. The capacities and
knowledge of Indigenous and rural people are key
resources in achieving sustainable and just approaches
to ending global poverty.
Canada should promote an end to the use of aid
and public resources to subsidize fossil fuels here and
in developing countries. World Bank support should
shift from investments in non-renewable to renewable
energy, conservation, and energy efficiency.
Canada must acknowledge that access to water is a
human right and support policies to ensure public
access to clean water for all.
8
SUPPORT DEMOCRATIC
GOVERNANCE AND
GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
CONTRIBUTE TO DEMOCRATIC
GOVERNANCE IN ORDER TO
ENSURE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE
FULFILLMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
AT HOME AND IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES. SUPPORT ACTIVE
CITIZENSHIP ENGAGEMENT IN
CANADA AND THE SOUTH AND
AT THE GLOBAL LEVEL, INCLUDING
THE DIVERSE ROLES PLAYED BY
CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS
(CSOS) IN DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT. ENHANCE THE ROLES FOR
PARLIAMENTARIANS IN GLOBAL
POLICY ISSUES.
© CIDA/ACDI
© CIDA/ACDI
| 15
DEMOCRACY – THE KEY TO HUMAN
RIGHTS AND EFFECTIVE POLICY
Strong democracies require free and fair elections. But
strong democracies depend equally on what takes
place between elections. An active and engaged
citizenry is a pre-requisite not only for the realization
of human rights, but also for effective policies to
eradicate poverty and achieve well-being.
Citizens need the knowledge and the tools to
engage decision-makers, while decision-makers must
grasp the need to listen and respond. A key vehicle for
an active citizenry is civil society organizations (CSOs).
By taking part in women’s organizations, trade unions
and other CSOs, citizens increase their influence
through collective action for change. They become
actors in their own development, helping shape the
decisions that affect their lives. In this way, citizens claim
their rights, like those of gender equality, education
and health care. Democracy is stronger for it.
CSOs are also the main means of public engagement
on global issues. They raise awareness, provide avenues
for action, and opportunities for relationships between
North and South and for collaboration on issues of
poverty and justice. Canadian CSOs together with their
Southern CSO counterparts are increasingly recognized
as essential contributors to effective aid and development. They are having an important impact on the
priorities, design and implementation of policy.
While there is an evident trend towards recognizing how important CSOs, North and South, are to
healthy democratic governance, much can be done
to strengthen that movement. In many countries in
the South, active citizenship is not an accepted part
of political culture. The poor, particularly women and
girls, who face gender discrimination and economic
inequality, are specially disadvantaged.
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WHAT WE CAN DO
Public engagement begins at home. Canada needs to
strengthen its own avenues for the participation of
civil society in decision-making and policy development.
In tandem with this, must be a commitment to
boosting the role of Parliament, its MPs and committees in determining international policy, advancing
human rights and ending global poverty. Experience
at home with an effective CSO sector and active
Parliament will lead to a stronger commitment to
support such involvement abroad. The goal is a sense
of “global citizenship”, recognizing our membership
in a global community linked by a common interest
in resolving global problems.
Our aid and development policies must recognize the
critical role of CSOs, North and South, in democratic
development, the realization of human rights, the
effective delivery of aid and the eradication of poverty.
The promotion of human rights and democratic values
must be at the centre of Canada’s post-9/11 security
agenda at home and abroad.
9
BUILD A DEMOCRATIC
AND EFFECTIVE
MULTILATERAL SYSTEM
SUPPORT MULTILATERALISM AND
THE UN AS A CORNERSTONE
OF CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY,
WHILE WORKING FOR REFORMS
THAT DEMOCRATIZE MULTILATERAL
INSTITUTIONS, INCLUDING
THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL
INSTITUTIONS. CORRECT
THE NORTH-SOUTH POWER
IMBALANCES, AND ENSURE THE
PRIMACY OF UN NORMS OF
HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP IN THE
MULTILATERAL SYSTEM.
© CIDA/ACDI
| 17
MULTILATERALISM MATTERS
WHAT WE CAN DO
The experience of devastating global wars, a commitment to peace and security and the challenges of
reconstruction gave birth to the multilateral system in
the 1940s. The United Nations and its key instrument,
the International Bill of Rights, was followed by a
number of other multilateral bodies with mandates to
address international issues from poverty and famine
to trade, development, finance and economic relations.
The growing global movement for reform of multilateral institutions is “global citizenship” in action.
To regain legitimacy, for all the world’s people, these
institutions must meet the demands for accountability,
transparency, democratic practice and agenda reform.
Above all, human rights, the first obligation of states,
must govern the activities of all multilateral institutions.
In the post-Cold War era, globalization, interdependence and the rise of global issues like climate change
and endemic poverty make effective global decisionmaking more important than ever. But the multilateral
system has not aged well, nor adapted adequately
to the problems of this emerging world.
CRACKS IN THE MULTILATERAL EDIFICE
Multilateral institutions reflect global power relations.
Global inequities are mirrored in multilateral decisionmaking. Southern governments have less influence
than their Northern counterparts in all fora.
An imbalance of power exists among multilateral
institutions themselves. The independence of the
International Financial Institutions (IFIs), like the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO,
and their historical tendency to adopt rules that favour
a transnational corporate agenda, conflicts with and
eclipses the UN’s normative framework of human
rights, democracy and environmental stewardship.
Finally, multilateralism itself is under attack. Unilateralism
on the part of the USA, the UN’s leading financial
backer and central diplomatic player, has undermined
multilateral conventions on war, international humanitarian and criminal law, climate change and the rights
of Indigenous peoples. The UN also faces a financial
crisis due partly to the failure of states to meet their
commitments.
CCIC and many Southern CSOs and governments
are calling for both urgent support to save multilateral
endeavours, and major reform of multilateral institutions to address the power imbalances that impede
their effectiveness and credibility.
18 |
Canada’s foreign policy should embrace the cause of
multilateralism and reform of multilateral institutions
(especially the IFIs) to reflect the primacy of the UN’s
human rights commitments.
Canada should advocate democratization and correction of the North-South power imbalance in bodies
like the WTO, IMF and World Bank. Reforms would
also entail an end to economic, social and political
conditions imposed on loans to poor countries. A
borrower-lender relationship that acknowledges
shared obligations under international human rights
law, stressing locally-determined development outcomes, should be the new norm.
Other reforms would make the UN Security Council
geographically more representative, provide avenues
for civil society and citizens’ input through a consultative UN Parliamentary assembly. Canada should also
advocate the establishment of a consolidated UN
agency for women.
Finally, Canada should support capacity building and
access for Southern CSOs to participate more effectively
in multilateral policy processes, and strengthen the
means by which CSOs, from North and South, can
collaborate to influence multilateral policies.
10
ACHIEVE MORE
AND BETTER AID
DIRECT CANADIAN OFFICIAL
DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (ODA)
EXCLUSIVELY TO POVERTY
REDUCTION, CONSISTENT WITH
CANADA’S OBLIGATIONS TO
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
STANDARDS, TAKING INTO
ACCOUNT THE PERSPECTIVES OF
THE POOR. ESTABLISH A SPECIFIC
TIMETABLE FOR INCREASING
CANADIAN ODA TO REACH
THE UN TARGET OF 0.7% OF
CANADIAN GROSS NATIONAL
INCOME. ENSURE THAT CANADIAN
CSOS REFLECT A RIGHTS-BASED
FRAMEWORK AND EMBODY THE
PARTNERSHIP PRINCIPLES IN THE
CCIC CODE OF ETHICS IN THEIR
PROGRAMMATIC RELATIONSHIPS.
POVERTY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE
QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF AID
© Patrick Leclerc
Poverty has many faces and many causes. That being
the case, the quality of aid becomes a factor as important as its quantity for the eradication of poverty.
Both require attention.
1.25 billion to 960 million. In 2006, 200 million people
had no job, and over 1.4 billion working poor earned
under $2/day. Seventy per cent of those in absolute
poverty are women or girls. Gender equality is only
one of the human rights that poverty violates, but
its fulfilment is crucial to any anti-poverty strategy.
In 2000, the UN adopted the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The MDGs set minimum targets for
reducing poverty, hunger, illiteracy, discrimination
against women and environmental degradation by
2015. Progress has been spotty. While the proportion
of those living in absolute poverty, earning under
$1/day, may have fallen from 32% to 19% by 2004,
the number of poor dropped only slightly, from
In 2005, Canada’s Parliament resolved to increase its
aid commitment to 0.7% of Gross National Income
by 2015. Yet, at the current rate of increase, and
despite years of budgetary surpluses, we won’t reach
that target before 2035, twenty years in arrears. The
quality of our aid is also in question. Unless our aid
targets poverty reduction exclusively, it is vulnerable to
misdirection to serve domestic political, commercial,
| 19
or security interests. The conflict zones of Afghanistan
and Iraq, for example, consumed 36% of all new
Canadian aid dollars between 2000 and 2005.
CIDA has already made the root causes of poverty a
focus, exceeding its targets for basic education, primary
health, HIV/AIDS, and child protection. But, while the
rural poor predominate, the agency’s support for small
and medium scale agriculture falls short. In health, a
focus on high profile global health funds has shortchanged investment in long-term improvement of
health systems and primary care in the poorest
countries. Finally, despite the role of gender inequality
in poverty, CIDA reports fail to assess the gender
impact of its aid.
Canada signed the Paris Declaration on Aid
Effectiveness in 2005, along with other leading
donor and recipient countries. The Declaration commits
signatories to respect country ownership and local
strategies for poverty eradication, to coordinate donor
practices, to track results and ensure mutual accountability. CSOs see the Declaration as an important
step, but it needs strengthening – with better measures
of poverty reduction, of progress on human rights, on
ending donor conditions that impede local ownership,
of accountability to local citizens and parliamentarians,
and recognition of the unique role of CSOs as development actors in their own right.
Above all, Canada needs to refocus its aid efforts to
make the eradication of poverty, in fulfillment of our
international human rights obligations, the exclusive
goal. In so doing, we need to take account of the
perspectives of the poor and promote the elimination
of donor-imposed conditions in aid relationships.
Equally important, is establishing a realistic 10-year
timetable to increase our aid spending to 0.7% of GNI.
To improve the quality of our aid and its effectiveness
in reducing poverty, Canada should focus on four
development challenges – democratic governance,
sustainable livelihoods for the poor, gender equality,
and the social inclusion of poor and marginalized
people by investing in social services and infrastructure.
Canada and the aid community must also recognize
the role of CSOs in the aid “architecture”. CSOs are
the bridge that link initiatives to end poverty and
advance human rights with the local realities of the
poor. Inclusion of CSOs at all stages, from policy
development to delivery, is a key to effective aid.
Creating space for CSO activism, cooperation and
networking, domestically and internationally, is
essential. Canadian CSOs link with Southern CSOs
to support the right of peoples to determine and
advance their own development priorities. CCIC’s
Code of Ethics sets out the principles that should
govern these partnerships.
WHAT WE CAN DO
Aid will not solve the issue of global poverty on its
own; reform of multilateral institutions, trade rules,
and sustainable environmental practices all have a role
to play. But if Canada is to do its share in achieving
the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, both the
quantity and quality of aid need attention. Used strategically and effectively, aid can encourage the fulfillment
of human rights (gender equality, education, health,
for example). It can also support citizen empowerment and democratization, the key to locally
autonomous development.
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Canada should develop a White Paper on Eliminating
Global Poverty to inform these commitments.
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