McLeod Group Guest Blog by Alison Y. Riddle, July 12, 2016
The lack of public consultation and evidence-based policy-making that characterized the Conservative government resulted in a dilution of Canada’s historically strong reputation as a global human rights champion, especially when it came to the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights on the international stage. The recent independent evaluation of Canada’s Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) Initiative that Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched at the 2010 G8 summit in Muskoka noted that while Canada’s international MNCH investments were effective in responding to developing country priorities, they left out any significant support for women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). There is extensive evidence to show that SRHR interventions, such as family planning and the provision of safe abortion services, are critical to the achievement of gender equality and the fulfillment of women’s full human rights.
In a welcome shift from what characterized public policy-making over the last ten years, the new Liberal government has launched public consultations as part of its International Assistance Review. The discussion paper accompanying the consultation process commits to filling the previous gap with a new focus on SRHR, especially with respect to adolescent girls. This is welcome news, and a strong basis upon which to build Canada’s new feminist approach to foreign policy, but we must be careful not to abandon the achievements of the last five years under the MNCH Initiative as the Liberal government tries to shake off remnants of the Conservative approach to Canadian foreign policy. In particular, women’s health must not continue to languish behind advances made in reducing infant and child mortality.
Going forward, the health of women and girls must be seen from a perspective that moves beyond their narrowly defined role of mothers, or mothers-to-be, and embraces a rights-based, life-course approach to women’s health, so that Canada’s investments aim for the highest attainable standards of health and well-being for women and girls at every age.
Only with this more comprehensive view of women’s health can Canada ensure that it does not overlook the rights and needs of the most vulnerable, nor exacerbate the inequalities that can arise when the donor community seizes upon its latest priority. Such an approach would build on Canada’s strength as a gender-equality champion and place the focus on providing support that empowers women and girls to claim their rights, while encouraging policy makers to meet their obligations to create more responsive health systems.
Women’s health encompasses so much more than just pregnancy and motherhood—even when sexual and reproductive health and rights are added to the list. Breast and cervical cancer, sexually transmitted infections besides HIV, gender-based violence, mental health, and obesity-related diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, are significant health challenges for many women and girls, depending on where they are in the world and in their lives. Cervical cancer claims the lives of 200,000 women every year, 80% of whom are in developing countries. Gestational diabetes, which increases a child’s chance of developing Type 2 diabetes by four to eight times, is also on the rise. Canada can empower women and girls to identify their own health priorities, and then respond—not set the priorities for them.
As a first step towards a return to evidence-based policy-making and the implementation of a feminist foreign policy agenda, Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the federal department responsible for Canada’s official development assistance, will need to rebuild its cadre of technical specialists in the areas of health and gender equality to inform policy and program development. Cuts to the public service by the Harper government took a heavy toll on subject matter experts, as GAC shifted priority to employing generalists who rotate positions every few years. The result is no one and everyone is an ‘expert.’
The few technical specialists who are left have minimal interaction with country programs—where the large part of Canada’s investments are planned and implemented—and have little time or management support to remain abreast of the latest developments in their fields. It is hard to imagine how Canada can develop evidence-based policies and programs without in-house experts with extensive knowledge of the latest research and trends. If the Canadian government is truly serious about being a global leader in women’s and girls’ health, then it must have the dedicated technical expertise to back it up.
Alison Y. Riddle is a former health and gender equality specialist with CIDA and a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Ottawa. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.