CANADA

22 Jun
by sofia
Forums: 
General discussion
Dear all, 
Canada’s feminist international assistance policy was recently launched. This policy recognizes that supporting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is the best way to build a more peaceful, inclusive and prosperous world. To do this, it supports targeted investments, partnerships, innovation and advocacy efforts with the greatest potential to close gender gaps and improve everyone’s chance for success. But it also works across other six action areas that reflect the multidimensional nature of poverty, in support of the Sustainable Development Goals: 
  1. Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls
  2. Human Dignity
  3. Growth that works for everyone
  4. Environment and climate action
  5. Inclusive governance
  6. Peace and security
A difference from previous policies is that Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls will be the core area of work. Canada will support efforts to reduce sexual and gender-based violence; to strengthen women’s organizations and movements that advance women’s rights; to improve governments’ capacity to provide services to women and girls and to improve gender analysis.
Going forward, Canada will increase its support to initiatives that advance gender equality and women’s empowerment as their principal focus. It has committed15 percent of all bilateral international development assistance investments to specifically target gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls by 2021-22 and 80 percent of bilateral international development assistance will go through Global Affairs Canada. 
 
Global Affairs Canada will seek out new ways of working and new partnerships that can increase the effectiveness of Canada’s development efforts. This will include innovative funding partnerships and greater investments in research, as well as closer collaboration with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canadian universities and other research institutions. Global Affairs Canada will continue to engage Canadian civil society organizations and will also be providing $100 million over five years in dedicated funding for small and medium-sized Canadian civil society organizations so they can develop and implement innovative programming in partnership with local organizations to support the six action areas.
 
In delivering assistance programmes Canada will also work closely with other donors, including in developing countries, and support selected new funding mechanisms to encourage more innovative and cost-effective private-and voluntary-sector solutions to sustainable development challenges. Canada will discontinue its “countries-of-focus” approach, which concentrated development assistance on a fixed shortlist of countries and will adapt its international assistance approaches to better respond to local needs and opportunities in the diverse range of countries where they work while increasing its support for least-developed countries (LDCs). For that reason, Canada will ensure that no less than 50 percent of its bilateral international development assistance is directed to sub-Saharan African countries by 2021-22. Canada will also scale up support to those countries where population growth and climate change will continue to have a disproportionate impact. 
 
 
Also available in the FSMBO under Publications: http://fsmbo-wiego.org/en/publications