Canada's focus on gender shows up in nutrition programs in troubled countries

Amir Abdulla, deputy executive director of the UN's World Food Program, said the money will improve the nutrition, health and education prospects for tens of thousands of girls and boys over a long period.

Thestar.com
Nov. 23, 2017
By Tonda Maccharles

The Liberal slogan about promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls around the world is lofty talk, for sure.

But what does it look like in action, and more important, does the world care?

This week, some of the answers to those questions came into clearer focus.

As International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau toured the crisis border regions in Bangladesh, her parliamentary secretary announced in Ottawa the government will direct $50 million of its foreign aid over the next five years to pay for simple school meal programs in four troubled countries: Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon and Syria.

The announcement was low-key. The money isn't new, but comes from existing departmental funds, and will go to the United Nations World Food Program which provides nutritious school meals.

And yet, the decision to spend $50 million on school lunches seems curious, especially given the massive needs in Bangladesh where 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have flooded across the border. Or the needs in Yemen where widespread hunger and malnutrition is the direct result of a Saudi blockade in retaliation against Houthi rebel strikes. Or, for that matter, the needs in South Sudan where a girl is more likely to die in childbirth than to finish a primary school education.

Yet Amir Abdulla, deputy executive director of the UN's World Food Program, hailed the move and hopes Canada will urge its global allies to follow suit, especially in a year it chairs the G7 group of top world economies.

In an interview with the Star, Abdulla acknowledged the needs are great in many regions. He oversees all emergency operations for the WFP, including the crisis in Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Bangladesh.

The mass exodus of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar "caught us all off guard" in late summer, he said, and now one in four Rohingya children are suffering from malnutrition. Abdulla says the Saudi blockade of Yemen will be felt by "a generation of children" suffering from widespread malnutrition as a result.

Still, Abdulla says Canadians should understand the Liberal government's contribution to school meals will translate into improving the nutrition, health and education prospects for tens of thousands of girls and boys over a long period, he said.

"Whilst it might not seem like a huge sum of money, school meal programs offer a great way of reaching children who are among the most vulnerable," he said.

Consider, he says, that "generally we can do three to four school meals for one U.S. dollar, that's how efficient those programs are. They are also targeted at ensuring they're highly nutritious meals."

Abdulla said it's a concrete way to aid Syrian refugees in Lebanon, where the government has allowed Syrian refugee children to go to school; allowed Syrian curriculum to be taught by Syrian teachers; and where some schools are running two or three school shifts daily to accommodate refugee students. In many cases, they are coming to school in the evening and "they're not getting fed at home and need to eat, so they're running school meals programs, and that's what this funding will be used for."

"Whilst it might not seem like a huge sum of money, school meal programs offer a great way of reaching children who are among the most vulnerable; they are a good distribution mechanism, because you have a controlled environment," he said.

There are other clear benefits beyond nutrition, health and education, he adds.

"Girls are safer while they're in school," he said. They learn about their own rights, and they may avoid early and forced marriage or teenage pregnancy.

"You're really getting three or four different outcomes."

It was an announcement International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau was supposed to have made. But she was travelling for three days this week in Bangladesh to the crisis region to see for herself.

On Thursday, she spoke to reporters after meetings with Rohingya refugees, Bangladeshi government officials, Red Cross, UNHCR and other NGOs trying to deliver aid to the region.

Again, curiously, Bibeau announced the Liberal government would spend $35 million over five years on improving sexual and reproductive health, and maternal health services in five of the poorest regions of Bangladesh. It was a program that was underway before the Rohingya crisis erupted in late August. It does not specifically aim relief at the refugees, Bibeau said.

Yet she acknowledged the needs are great in overcrowded refugee camps, where traumatized women often stop eating in the afternoon because they fear going to the bathroom at night. "We are finding it difficult to reach the young mothers," she said, adding that what she witnessed "confirmed the importance of our feminist policy because it is very important to take into consideration the needs of women."

The Liberal government has so far committed $25 million to the urgent humanitarian needs of the Rohingya, said Bibeau's office.

It has also set up the Myanmar Crisis Relief Fund, which will see the government match Canadians' donations to registered Canadian charities between Aug. 25 and Nov. 28. That number will not be known until after the final tally comes in.

Beyond immediate relief, Bibeau said the Canadian government wants the Rohingya to be able to return to Myanmar with full citizenship rights, yet withheld comment when asked if Canada would employ sanctions against those responsible for the violence that drove them out.

"We all agree that it's ethnic cleansing and the actions that have been taken by the military are just not acceptable," said Bibeau, but she downplayed the likelihood of sanctions, saying it would require crimes to be well-documented.

Bibeau was likewise reluctant to comment on the agreement reached Thursday between Bangladesh and Myanmar to return the refugees, saying only she hoped it would respect their need for full citizenship rights.