Build Back Equal: Canada’s unique response to hunger, COVID-19 and the climate crisis
29 June 2020 - While many Canadians worry about grocery store shelves being more bare than usual, more than 265 million people globally could face starvation by the end of 2020. Farmers in Canada and around the world are seeing challenges in their ability to grow, buy, sell, and prepare food. At the same time, women and girls on the front lines of the pandemic are facing a reversal of decades of progress on gender equality and women's rights.
As funds are being mobilized globally in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, FAO North America and CARE Canada convened a Town Hall discussion with Canadian Parliamentarians to explore what a Canada-made response to the looming hunger due to COVID-19 looks like. Jessie Thomson, Vice President of the Partnerships for Global Change at CARE Canada, moderated the interactive discussion.
“We must strive to emerge stronger and with a much more just, equitable and resilient world order. Going back to the ‘old normal’ is not an alternative,” said Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America in opening remarks. “Women are the hardest hit by this pandemic but also that they will be the backbone of our recovery. Every policy response that recognizes this will be more impactful for it.”
Barbara Grantham, President and CEO, CARE Canada provided a summary of the key messages that came from the previous FAO North America and CARE Canada discussion on how to prepare for and recover from the impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition.
“COVID-19 is a bit like climate change in fast forward,” said Grantham. In just a few weeks, the pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of our health systems, and our food systems. And when you add climate factors such as locust infestations, droughts, monsoons, it becomes really clear that we cannot chart a way forward from COVID-19 without building greater resilience.”
“With its Feminist International Assistance Policy and commitment to gender-based policy-making, Canada has an opportunity to lead globally by supporting actions and organizations that make very big differences globally,” added Grantham. She emphasized the importance of supporting women and women-led organizations to respond effectively to COVID-19.
Máximo Torero-Cullen, Chief Economist and Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development at FAO provided an update on the impact of COVID-19 on food systems. He explained that the coronavirus has been throwing punches to the global economy, first disrupting the global food chain supply, and second causing a global recession of historic proportion, generating significant job losses and reducing income to access food. The COVID-19 pandemic is also further exacerbating inequalities, especially on gender and minorities. According to the World Bank, COVID-19 may push an additional 89-117 million people into extreme poverty in 2020.
Torero-Cullen further added that COVID-19 is mostly affecting the food processing, services and distribution services, which is disproportionately affecting more women who make-up a high percentage of those who work in the first two sectors. Even prior to COVID-19, gender inequality affected rural women’s access to productive resources. Moving forward, he outlined policy recommendations to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on rural women and girls. Through the FAO Hand-in-Hand Initiative, FAO is working with partners to help the most vulnerable countries.
Claudine Mensah Awute, West Africa Regional Director for CARE International, highlighted how women are facing challenges accessing markets, inputs and equipment due to mobility restrictions because of COVID-19. When CARE asked women who are part of the Village Savings and Loan Associations program how COVID-19 is affecting them, a 40-year old woman from Niger with seven children said, “The hardest part of it is daily food. I used to feed my family from my activities of food processing and selling in markets. Today we can barely eat two meals a day with such a large family. And to make things worse, my husband who was in Nigeria working to earn some income has returned to our village with nothing to do.”
Paul Hagerman, Director of Public Policy at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, joined in his capacity as the Co-Chair of the Food Security Policy Group, a coalition of Canadian civil society organizations, which work on the ground on food security in developing countries and engage in policy dialogue and advocacy in Canada. As a result of COVID-19, organizations have shifted their activities funded by the Canadian Government and donations from the people. For example, decentralizing food distribution; using radio, phone and text to do agricultural extension; and helping farmers get better access to market information, post-harvest storage, and finding new buyers.
“In all of these things, we are looking at the impact of both COVID-19 and the new technologies on women and men, how they affect them differently and trying to find ways that these new approaches can actually build back better and provide more equal access than what the old systems used to,” said Hagerman. “We recognize the needs are great in Canada, and that’s going to be the priority for the Canadian government to respond, but we are all saying the needs are great overseas and this is a global pandemic, so it’s important that Canada responds overseas as well.”
Town Hall with Canadian Parliamentarians
Following the introductory remarks and interventions, a Town Hall with Canadian Parliamentarian highlighted perspectives on Canada’s unique response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“No one succeeds unless we all do, and Canada is committed to playing its role,” said MP Kamal Khera, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development. “Solutions require much-needed cooperation and coordination, which is why the Canadian Government is closely monitoring the potential impacts of COVID-19, not just on health, but on food security and nutrition of people in the world’s poorest and vulnerable countries.”
MP Khera outlined Canada’s global responses to the needs of developing countries noting its support to partners from the humanitarian response such as the World Food Programme’s Common Services Platform to maintain supply chains, FAO’s work to preserve livelihoods of the most vulnerable and IFAD’s Rural Food Stimulus Facility. She also noted, “Canada has stepped up internationally to lead and co-convene virtual high-level meetings of the UN Group of Friends for Food Security and Nutrition and Development Minister’s Contact Group Meeting and was the first to fund.”
MP Mike Lake, CPC Shadow Critic for International Development, noted, “as a first step we’ve got to do a better job of rallying Canadians around international development, making sure we are talking in their language and telling stories.” He added, “We as parliamentarians need to come together as often as we can to have these conversations because it’s an area where we should be able to build consensus in this country.”
MP Heather McPherson, NDP Deputy House Leader, Critic for International Development, Deputy Critic for Foreign Affairs, highlighted Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, which looks at the impact of hunger on women, and its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals of eliminating hunger around the world. However, she noted that that Canadian official development assistance is low, emphasizing that, “we have to look at our level of aid, and look at the way that we spend that aid. When we look at food security, long-term is the ticket,” she underlined.
“We are at a moment of historic economic realities,” said MP Elizabeth May, Parliamentary Leader of the Green Party of Canada in her concluding remarks. “Let us show the same degree of resolve to save lives that governments around the world were prepared to show in the last three months, let us see that in the next six months. Let’s see a transformational global change that is more than anything we have dreamt of the past couple of decades that says we have to achieve all the SDG goals, but it’s part of a survival package for all of our economies and societies.”
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