Address by Minister Bibeau at National School of Public Administration International Conference: What strategy for the future of La Francophonie?

Speech

March 9, 2016 - Montréal, Quebec

Check against delivery. This speech has been translated in accordance with the official languages policy and edited for posting and distribution in accordance with the Government of Canada’s communications policy.

I am very pleased to be here with you this morning to launch this conference on the strategy for the future of La Francophonie.

I would like to thank the École Nationale d’Administration Publique [national school of public administration (ENAP)] for inviting me to speak to you and to congratulate its association on organizing this conference. The conference comes at the right moment, since I am engaged in reviewing Global Affairs Canada’s [development] policies.

This type of event, which brings together high-calibre speakers, is especially important in encouraging reflection on the activities of La Francophonie and reaffirming our priorities. You, the students of ENAP, are tomorrow’s decision makers. La Francophonie counts on your intelligence and creativity to take up the many challenges we face now and will face in the future.

Today, you will have productive exchanges about crucial issues: the rule of law, sustainable development, education, geopolitics, peace and security, not to mention culture and media.

As Ms. Jean [Michaëlle Jean, Secretary General of La Francophonie] rightly pointed out, all of these issues are connected. Indeed, we can no longer “separate the peace and security agenda from the development agenda or from the economic, climate or even cultural agendas.”

They are all linked because they all come together in the human.

And humans, particularly woman and young people, must be at the heart of any development that claims to be sustainable.

That is why equity and sustainable economic development are at the core of the Government of Canada’s vision and its national and international policies.

I firmly believe that our common challenges give us a unique opportunity for renewal and improvement. To take up these challenges, we must work closely with our partners in La Francophonie.

Our priorities must be clear and our actions targeted.

The global community recently adopted a new generation of sustainable development goals.

The 2030 Agenda is the agenda of La Francophonie.

For the first time in the history of international development, the world has set itself shared development goals that will from now on integrate economic growth with employment.

This clearly demonstrates that we have made significant progress—to the point where the word “cooperation” now applies in all respects.

In concrete terms, we have adopted the Economic Strategy for La Francophonie, which “puts individual development at the centre of the sustainable economic development process.”

As part of this shared strategy, Canada is working on several fronts, notably in the area of entrepreneurship and employment.

For example, Canada was the first to commit, by making a $10-million contribution to the International Organisation of La Francophonie to support a project designed to stimulate the creation of businesses and jobs for women and youth in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa.

As well, our government is actively supporting La Francophonie initiatives that encourage women’s empowerment, because we sincerely believe that the success and durability of our actions depends in large part on them.

Yesterday we celebrated International Women’s Day. To underscore the occasion, Canada chose the theme Women’s Empowerment Leads to Equality.

Empowering women means giving them the tools they need to act and be proactive to make gender equality a reality. It also means giving them access to power—political, economic and social—and, in so doing, revitalizing the foundations of our societies. Must we remind ourselves that the French-speaking countries of sub-Saharan Africa still have the highest maternal and child mortality rates?

So early intervention in the lives of women is key. Facilitate access to education. Prevent early and forced marriage. The rights of girls must be defended so that they can become empowered women able to exercise their full rights as citizens.

And the same is true for all young people.

In the francophone world, there are over 245 million young people. In the developing countries of La Francophonie, children and youth represent the majority of the population. By 2050, the population of young francophones in sub-Saharan Africa will have grown from 84 million to a projected 276 million.

Conscious of this, we want to increase the number of projects that enable young people to find their place within their respective societies.

Therefore, we issued a call for proposals, entitled Skills for Employment in La Francophonie, to Canadian organizations.

We received proposals for a series of very exciting projects aimed at improving the employability of young people and women through training.

These projects will foster the creation of partnerships involving Canadian and international partners from the private sector, academia and civil society.

With respect to training and job-readiness, the Canadian Francophonie Scholarship Program has been for decades a pillar of Canadian cooperation. The program supports sustainable development and institutional capacity-building in 37 member countries.

The Government of Canada has also joined forces with ENAP and the Government of Quebec to offer training to civil servants in Haiti to support the opening of a national school of public and political administration in Haiti, a country I am looking forward to visiting in the near future.

All of these initiatives are aligned with the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, to achieve these targets, we will have to draw upon our ability to innovate.

Innovation is not limited to new technologies. It must be present in promotion, in our ways of doing things, in our partnerships and our financing mechanisms.

To that end, we must mobilize the public and private sectors, as well as civil society, in the creation of new partnerships that will recognize the importance of economic development. This dimension is essential to ensuring the durability of our actions on the ground and reducing poverty in developing countries.

I am certain that in academia, and particularly in public administration, there is great interest in the synergies and energy that intersectoral partnerships can create. In my opinion, this is the way of the future.

Eager to innovate and accelerate development initiatives, the Government of Canada has in fact recently taken part in the creation of Convergence, the only platform of its kind in the world for mobilizing private sector resources and expertise to help the poorest and most vulnerable people.

Of course, there is no question that our actions on the ground must take into account the impact of climate change on developing countries.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emphasized at COP21 [the UN’s Paris climate conference], many of these countries have not contributed to it.

They nevertheless suffer the consequences.

That is why the Prime Minister has announced a contribution of $2.65 billion over five years. This will help these countries reduce their emissions but above all to adapt to the effects of climate change, particularly to more frequent drought and flooding.

We will also have the opportunity to put innovative solutions in place to increase access to water and upgrade irrigation systems.

Within La Francophonie, we will also contribute to accelerating the transfer of knowledge and technology to implement green energy infrastructures, which, in turn, will allow for the creation of new businesses. In that regard, the Institut de la Francophonie pour le Développement Durable [La Francophonie institute of sustainable development] has long-standing experience in training and capacity-building, notably in the field of energy efficiency.

As you can see, we are working on several fronts for the future of La Francophonie. We have multiple strategies. I have just named a few of them: the defence of women’s rights, creation of jobs for youth, mobilization of intersectoral partners, complementary development financing mechanisms and green technologies for environmentally sustainable economic development. It is all under way thanks to coordination, to cooperation and to our commitment.

That commitment is asserting itself even more strongly at a time when, from Paris to Bamako, from Beirut to Ouagadougou, and even here at home, La Francophonie has been struck by terrorists.

These tragic events remind us that we have a role to play in the fight against terror by supporting francophone states that do not have the resources and institutions necessary to defend themselves against this now-global threat. I am thinking particularly of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

But these events also remind us of La Francophonie’s solidarity.

They remind us that initiatives that bring hope and the promise of peace make us stronger.

That is the message to remember.

I am proud to be francophone. I am proud to live in a country whose vitality rests on its diversity and linguistic duality. I am proud to belong to an international francophone community committed to building a better world.

Thank you, and I wish you an excellent day. My colleague Virginie St-Louis, who is spending the day with you, will pass on your reflections to me, and they will inform the Francophonie chapter of the department’s policy review.

Contacts

Bernard Boutin
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie
343-203-5977
bernard.boutin@international.gc.ca

Media Relations Office
Global Affairs Canada
343-203-7700
media@international.gc.ca
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Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau Global Affairs Canada Government and Politics