FAIT Committee Report

LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION: FOR AN ACCOUNTABLE SUMMIT FOCUSED ON RESULTS

Recommendation 1 (p. 5)

The Committee believes that, overall, the Kananaskis Summit must acknowledge the urgent need for coherent, broadly based multilateral approaches to global reforms, and for a reform of G8 processes in order to restrain costs and to make them more results oriented and democratically accountable. Canada should take the lead in advocating such directions to its G8 partners. Canada should also lead by example, not only through inviting continuing parliamentary and other public input beyond the June Summit, but also by producing a full public accounting of summit costs and outcomes. One element of that should be a performance "report card" referred to this Committee well in advance of the next G8 summit.

CHAPTER II: ACTION TOWARDS A MORE EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Recommendation 2 (p. 12-13)

• Canada should use the G8 Summit to urge its partners to refrain from actions, such as damaging trade protectionism or deflationary monetary/fiscal measures, which could jeopardize prospects for world economic recovery.

• More generally, and leading by example, Canada should press the G8 to critically review their economic policies from the standpoint of whether they contribute to growth on terms that improve conditions of life for the majority of citizens, while helping to reduce gross inequities within and between the developed and developing world. In regard to the engine of global trade, Canada should encourage the negotiation of reformed international trade rules and practices that are explicitly designed to benefit the poorest people and regions, with particular attention to the needs of Africa.

Recommendation 3 (p. 15)

• Canada should propose that the G8 establish a working group on aid effectiveness and reform which would include participation by non-governmental and developing-country experts.

• Canada should also propose a realistic timetable for achieving the UN’s target for official development assistance (ODA) of 0.7% of GNP, and should lobby its G8 partners to increase substantially their level of ODA for Africa, with the objective of rapidly raising the overall level of assistance from the G8 members to that of the average of the non-G8 donor countries, currently 0.46% of GNP.

• In addition to reviewing the effectiveness of existing policies, the proposed G8 working group should be charged with responsibility for making an annual public report to summit leaders on both G8 progress in meeting the UN’s GNP targets for ODA and on G8 contributions to realizing the international development goals reaffirmed by recent UN summits.

Recommendation 4 (p. 16-17)

• Canada should urge the G8 to work with others towards fully funding and expanding the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria, with a focus on health infrastructures in the poorest areas, and to establish annual implementation targets for results.

• Similarly, Canada should push for increased G8 support for basic public education in the poorest countries, annual reporting targets on outcomes, the elimination of user fees and vigilance against other impediments to universal access.

• In regard to information and communications technology initiatives to bridge the "digital divide," such as the DOT Force, Canada should work with others to ensure that benefits can ultimately reach down to the level of the poorest people who have had the least access to such technologies.

Recommendation 5 (p. 18)

Canada should promote within the G7 substantial additional debt relief for the poorest countries linked to effective G7 support for improvements in transparent and democratically accountable governance, anti-corruption measures, and the implementation of credible long-term poverty reduction strategies in those countries.

Recommendation 6 (p. 19)

Canada should continue to provide leadership within the G7 on improving international mechanisms for the management of international financial crises and the aversion of recurrent and future crises, including through the establishment of an independent international bankruptcy court. In the context of a G7 action plan on financial stabilization, Canada should support a feasibility study of a Tobin-type currency transaction tax. Canada should also push for more effective implementation of OECD conventions and other international instruments in order to combat bribery, corruption, the exploitation of transnational financial networks for criminal purposes, and to put an end to tax evasion, notably that based on the existence of tax havens.

Recommendation 7 (p. 21)

Canada should urge that, in responding to the challenges of economic globalization, measures considered by the G8 take into account positive or negative impacts on progress towards realizing international human rights, social, cultural, and environmental goals.

CHAPTER III: ACTION TOWARDS A NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICA’S DEVELOPMENT

        Ensuring a Constructive G8 Response to Africa and to NEPAD as a Work in Progress

        The Committee remains confident that success under Canadian leadership is achievable at Kananaskis, and that the NEPAD process, however imperfect, must be given a chance to work in conjunction with a constructive ongoing G8 response. At the same time, we acknowledge the many serious criticisms made in the course of our hearings in regard to G8 policies towards Africa and in terms of perceived deficiencies in the NEPAD framework. These need to be addressed through open dialogue and bold actions by leaders both within the G8 and Africa.

Canadian Leadership on Eight Elements for an Effective G8 Action Plan for Africa

1.    Peacebuilding as a Condition for Sustainable Human Development

Recommendation 8 (p. 35)

Canada should press for a G8 Action Plan that takes a long-term integrated approach to Africa’s peace and security challenges and that devotes particular attention to:

• Stricter multilateral controls on illicit arms transfers and the trade in small arms, starting with a G8 system of controls and restrictions for automatic light weapons;

• Implementation of a strengthened process around the trafficking in, among other resources, diamonds used to finance conflicts;

• Promotion of enforceable codes of commercial conduct especially in zones of conflict;

• Assistance for conflict prevention, conflict resolution, and post-conflict rehabilitation, including reintegration of refugees and displaced persons.

2.    Providing Aid that Benefits the Poorest

Recommendation 9 (p. 37)

• Canada should press for a G8 action plan that both establishes firm time frames for substantially increasing development assistance to Africa, and does so on a basis that takes the credible evaluation of poverty reduction effectiveness as seriously for donors’ policies and practices as it does for recipients’ adherence to these goals. Canada should ensure that its recently created fund for Africa is additional to existing Canadian ODA to Africa, while urging G8 partners to make similar commitments beyond their current aid levels.

• G8 assistance should also seek, in a consistent and coordinated way, to build permanent African capacities which can be truly owned by Africans. Food production, rural infrastructure, basic public health and education should be among the priorities for well-governed development programs.

3.    Supporting Public Health and Education Priorities

Recommendation 10 (p. 39)

• Canada should press for priority attention in the G8 Action Plan to:

• address the HIV/AIDS crisis through a range of measures, including education and prevention, increasing support for the Global Health Fund, and improving access to affordable medicines;

• support a TRIPS solution at the WTO to remedy the situation of drug-importing African countries, while respecting patent protection laws;

• encourage internationally coordinated efforts among public health research groups in order to advance research on tropical diseases;

• invest in health infrastructure development in areas of greatest need;

• invest in inclusive basic education initiatives in the poorest countries;

• set out specific outcome-based targets for meeting both public health and education goals.

4.    Reforming International Trade, Investment and Finance

Recommendation 11 (p. 42-43)

• Canada should promote inclusion within the G8 Action Plan of commitments on international economic reforms, specifically:

• to open their markets to Africa’s exports by removing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade on the broadest possible basis, especially for the least developed countries;

• to reform WTO agricultural trade rules with particular attention to the needs of Africa’s small food producers, and envisaging the establishment of a stabilization-insurance-type mechanism which would assure then of a decent income;

• to consider implementation of enforceable international business investment standards with credible monitoring and reporting mechanisms;

• to significantly enhance African capacities to negotiate more favourable terms within trade, investment, debt and finance agreements, and to increase their representation in the governing structures of international economic organizations;

• to provide faster and fuller debt relief than has been achieved so far under the HIPC process for the poorest African countries which have demonstrated a commitment to respect democratic rights and pursue poverty reducing development priorities;

• to encourage greater use of international financial assistance for micro-credit initiatives that reach the poorest people.

5.    Improving Democratic Governance and Fighting Corruption

Recommendation 12 (p. 46)

Canada should work towards an Action Plan that incorporates shared-responsibility, rather than one-sided conditionality, with measures aimed at genuine democratic governance reforms in Africa, including independent judiciaries, and at meeting the expectations raised by NEPAD’s peer review mechanism. In setting high standards, the G8 should lead through their own compliance with multilateral good governance and anti-corruption norms such as those of the OECD. G8 assistance should focus on strengthening both state and civil-society capacities with the aim of achieving sound, transparent public administration that is democratically accountable. Further to that, consideration should be given to a joint G8-African Union interparliamentary initiative to strengthen legislative oversight capabilities

6.    Making Development Environmentally Sustainable

Recommendation 13 (p. 48)

Canada should work to ensure that the Africa Action Plan includes environmental sustainability as an essential component of economic recovery and development. Specific attention should be devoted to:

• sustainable utilization of resources, building on the positive example and best practices from projects of this kind already being carried out in some African countries;

• access to safe water especially for the rural areas;

• sharing of knowledge on African ecosystems;

• affordable renewable energy alternatives;

• responsibility for climate change impacts;

• multilateral agreement on environmental and social impact standards, with provision for transparent public assessment and enforcement procedures, especially for large-scale infrastructure and resource extraction projects.

In addition, leaders should consider ways to promote concrete G8-African Union follow up on objectives to be addressed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development taking place this September in South Africa.

7.    Building a True Partnership with Civil Society

Recommendation 14 (p. 51)

Canada should insist on a commitment in the G8 Africa Action Plan to submit the NEPAD framework to wider public consultation within African countries as an integral element of its implementation process. The G8 Plan, which should also be communicated widely to the public in the G8 countries, should remain open to change and adjustment responding to additional input from African and G8 citizens following the Kananaskis Summit. The Government of Canada should promote ongoing civil society participation around the Action Plan agenda, seeking especially to involve Canadians of African ancestry, and recognizing also the role that parliamentary processes ought to play.

8.    Evaluating Mutual Responsibilities and Accountabilities for Results

Recommendation 15 (p. 53)

Canada should urge G8 and African leaders to collaborate on building into the Africa Action Plan a credible process for evaluating each other’s performance on realizing the specific objectives that should be incorporated into all elements of the Plan, while at the same time giving the NEPAD’s peer review mechanism a chance to work. In addition, Canada should propose consideration of an independent review mechanism, with non-governmental and African participation, including for the G8’s implementation of its African partnership commitments agreed to at Kananaskis.

Recommendation 20 (p. 80)

Canada should lead in proposing to G8 Summit leaders at Kananaskis a task force on G8 reform which would look at options for expanding democratic public access while reducing summit costs and would make recommendations in time for action prior to the next summit. Particular attention in the task force’s mandate should be paid to improving the G8’s transparency and communications; enlarging participation by parliamentarians and non-state actors; measuring effectiveness in terms of actual performance; and, returning back full circle to Recommendation 1, providing a regular public mechanism of accountability for summit outcomes.

In addition, the Committee urges the Government to support the idea of holding an inaugural meeting of G8 parliamentarians in connection with the Kananaskis Summit, leading to the subsequent setting up of a G8 Interparliamentary Group that would be invited to submit recommendations directly to future summits.