Canadians outpouring of support to Haiti challenges our thinking on how to avert disaster for the world’s poor.
When new broke of the massive earthquake in Haiti, Canadians across the country asked themselves, How can we help?
The response was swift and impressive. As of January 25, Canadians donated than $80-million in support of relief and reconstruction. Within 24 hours the government had committed $5 million in aid and within 48 hours, more than $80 million was promised with an additional commitment to match all individual donations. Rescue teams, the disaster assistance response team (DART) and military personal were also dispatched. Less than two weeks after the quake hit, Canada convened a meeting of foreign ministers and key multilateral players in Montreal, to prepare for a spring leaders conference on the reconstruction of Haiti.
Canada’s longstanding relationship with Haiti — they are our second largest aid recipient after Afghanistan — eased our ability to help. Montreal has one of the biggest concentrations of Haitian Diaspora. Many Canadian relief and development organizations have worked there for decades. We know the country and its people.
We can be proud of the Canadian response. Canadians care. But increasingly Canadians are also asking, really, how can we help?
As a January Globe and Mail editorial noted, “With millions of dollars pledged and more than 10,000 NGOs operating in Haiti there is no shortage of good intentions.” Newspaper editorialists and ordinary Canadians are striving to make sense of what disasters of this magnitude can teach us about development for the future.
We know that in natural disasters, it is the poor and disenfranchised who suffer most brutally. Among the poor it is most often women and children who bear the brunt.
This disaster is all the more acute, because of the chronic and desperate poverty in which most Haitians live. As Peter Hallward in the Guardian UK noted poverty and powerlessness account for the full scale horror in Haiti. Earning less than $2 per day, ordinary Haitians have no ability to arm themselves against disaster with defences like earthquake resistant homes.
Haitian poverty, like poverty in countries where CCI works in West Africa, Southern Africa and South America, is no accident. It is the result decades of exploitation and oppression by wealthier nations. A history that continues to present day with global trade rules that favour rich nations and their producers while devastating national economies of developing countries; crippling debt obligations that siphon off resources that could be used to build sound infrastructure and services and impose conditionalities that force governments to curtail essential investments in public services like heath and education.
While it is critical that we support agencies on the ground striving to meet immediate urgent needs, we also need to look at how are our official development assistance and foreign policy, now and in years to come, can build and strengthen local resilience.
An important way to mitigate disasters like the Haitian earthquake is to invest in the resilience of people and their institutions. Reconstruction efforts need to support an independent and sovereign government that ensures basic human rights are met and that citizens are empowered to demand their rights.
The situation in Haiti and other fragile states will undoubtedly be discussed by G8 and G20 leaders when they meet in Canada later this year. Canadian civil society organizations, including Canadian Crossroads International, are hard at work trying to meet with government leaders to ensure past commitments are met, to renew and strengthen poverty-reduction strategies, with special emphasis on investment in programs for women and children. We are seeking government commitments to provide assistance to low-income countries coping with the effects of climate change and to instigate meaningful global financial reform to help all countries recover from the economic crisis. On Tuesday it seemed that the message was getting through. In an editorial, January 26, the Prime Minister acknowledged “it should not take a natural disaster to turn our attention to the less fortunate and that the world's poor have been hit hardest by the global economic downturn and in these difficult times we must address their pressing needs.” He stated that as president of the G8 in 2010, Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world's poorest regions.
Canada's commitment to playing a lead role in a pair of major new international aid projects is most welcome, but it has some Canadians asking where is the money? Currently Canada is giving only 0.32% of our national income in development aid. That's less than half of the point seven per cent (0.7%) we keep promising to give. In upcoming international summits and in Canada’s own upcoming budget announcement there is an opportunity to make good on past commitments and outline our vision for the future. Add your voice to these efforts and let our parliamentarians know that Canadians care deeply about these issues and believe that Canada can and should play a leadership role in developing and implementing the kinds of policies that will strengthen human rights and relieve the suffering of billions living in poverty. http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca/en/set-agenda-action-g8
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Monday, 23 November 2009
A Heated Debate
As support for global deal cools, Canadians need to hold leaders feet to the fire
Recently, I found myself sitting on the sidelines of a heated debate on climate change.
This was not a clash between scientists and climate change deniers. It was a group of environmental activists and development workers arguing the merits of the terms “climate change” versus “global warming.” It was a war of words, both sides desperate to ensure Canadians would understand the peril we face — hoping, beyond hope, that the right words would inspire action.
From where I sit, the peril could not be clearer. In my eight years with Canadian Crossroads International (CCI), I have witnessed the impact of drought and floods on Southern partners and the communities they serve.
In Swaziland, many go hungry. Nearly half the population is reliant on food aid. Seventy per cent of the population is engaged in subsistence farming and food production has been steadily falling for the past decade. Erratic weather, soil depletion and drought persist as problems for today and the future.
Niger, too, has struggled with food security due to uneven and unpredictable rainfall that has only worsened in recent years. CCI supports local partners’ work with subsistence farmers to increase their income and food security through adaptation strategies such as community grain banks. Here women like Fati Hassan reap the benefit. “Before, it was us the women who travelled. We travelled a distance of nine kilometres to get food and now it is close by.”
In Niger and Swaziland, as in many poor countries, women are disproportionately affected. Globally women produce up to 90 per cent of the rural poor’s food. They gather food, work the land and walk long distances seeking water and other staples. Because of their poverty they are at greater risk of violence and disease — AIDS, cholera and malaria. Women are charged with the use and preservation of the land, but exert little control of natural resources and are barred from owning property in many places.
I could go on. In recent interviews with Southern partners, each partner — no matter the focus of their work — raised the issue of climate change as a key challenge. Poor communities around the world bear little responsibility for the degradation caused by excessive carbon emissions, but they feel its impact most harshly. Combined with the current food and economic crises, climate change threatens to undo decades of development gains.
At Crossroads we’re in the business of poverty reduction. We are working with local partners to increase their resilience and capacity to adapt. We are supporting rural producers. And we are increasing women’s participation in decision-making in their communities and in government. We are not experts in climate change, but we do know that we can do something to reverse this terrible trend. It is just too important to sit on the sidelines. We can all do something.
We can change our own behaviour and consumption here in Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We can support poor countries disproportionately affected with funding for mitigation and adaptation. We can press for women’s increased political representation and access to and control over resources.
Perhaps most of all we can join with others to raise our voices. As headlines declare that global leaders have abandoned concrete goals for the UN summit in Copenhagen, hope is fading. It’s time to tell our leaders that we expect more from them.
Collaboration across borders to address global problems is hard. We get that. But reaching an agreement that is fair, ambitious and legally binding is within our grasp. We need our leaders to lead at Copenhagen.
www.cciorg.ca
Recently, I found myself sitting on the sidelines of a heated debate on climate change.
This was not a clash between scientists and climate change deniers. It was a group of environmental activists and development workers arguing the merits of the terms “climate change” versus “global warming.” It was a war of words, both sides desperate to ensure Canadians would understand the peril we face — hoping, beyond hope, that the right words would inspire action.
From where I sit, the peril could not be clearer. In my eight years with Canadian Crossroads International (CCI), I have witnessed the impact of drought and floods on Southern partners and the communities they serve.
In Swaziland, many go hungry. Nearly half the population is reliant on food aid. Seventy per cent of the population is engaged in subsistence farming and food production has been steadily falling for the past decade. Erratic weather, soil depletion and drought persist as problems for today and the future.
Niger, too, has struggled with food security due to uneven and unpredictable rainfall that has only worsened in recent years. CCI supports local partners’ work with subsistence farmers to increase their income and food security through adaptation strategies such as community grain banks. Here women like Fati Hassan reap the benefit. “Before, it was us the women who travelled. We travelled a distance of nine kilometres to get food and now it is close by.”
In Niger and Swaziland, as in many poor countries, women are disproportionately affected. Globally women produce up to 90 per cent of the rural poor’s food. They gather food, work the land and walk long distances seeking water and other staples. Because of their poverty they are at greater risk of violence and disease — AIDS, cholera and malaria. Women are charged with the use and preservation of the land, but exert little control of natural resources and are barred from owning property in many places.
I could go on. In recent interviews with Southern partners, each partner — no matter the focus of their work — raised the issue of climate change as a key challenge. Poor communities around the world bear little responsibility for the degradation caused by excessive carbon emissions, but they feel its impact most harshly. Combined with the current food and economic crises, climate change threatens to undo decades of development gains.
At Crossroads we’re in the business of poverty reduction. We are working with local partners to increase their resilience and capacity to adapt. We are supporting rural producers. And we are increasing women’s participation in decision-making in their communities and in government. We are not experts in climate change, but we do know that we can do something to reverse this terrible trend. It is just too important to sit on the sidelines. We can all do something.
We can change our own behaviour and consumption here in Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We can support poor countries disproportionately affected with funding for mitigation and adaptation. We can press for women’s increased political representation and access to and control over resources.
Perhaps most of all we can join with others to raise our voices. As headlines declare that global leaders have abandoned concrete goals for the UN summit in Copenhagen, hope is fading. It’s time to tell our leaders that we expect more from them.
Collaboration across borders to address global problems is hard. We get that. But reaching an agreement that is fair, ambitious and legally binding is within our grasp. We need our leaders to lead at Copenhagen.
www.cciorg.ca
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