Partnerships for lasting change for women and girls: Interview with the Honourable Karina Gould, MP, Minister of International Development, Canada

Karina Gould, Canada’s Minister of International Development
The Honourable Karina Gould has been serving as Canada’s Minister of International Development since 2019. She is passionate about public service and international development, and especially about breaking down barriers for women, youth, and underrepresented groups.

Global Affairs Canada is a staunch advocate of enhancing and increasing support to women’s rights, women-led and small women’s organizations. Their unique position has the capacity to effect real change by reaching women and girls at the grassroots level. Canada’s conviction was reaffirmed through its leadership of the Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership at the Generation Equality Forum. At the Forum, Canada renewed commitments to supporting women’s rights organizations addressing gender-based violence against women and girls.

Karina Gould, Minister of International Development, Canada shares the background of Canada’s dedication to championing these key areas for the gender equality agenda.

In 2017, the Government of Canada launched its Feminist International Assistance Policy and set ambitious targets for integrating and targeting gender equality in its international assistance efforts. How has this shaped Canada’s priorities in supporting women’s rights organizations and feminist movements?

We needed greater ambition, greater activism and greater accountability. We consulted with many stakeholders and the Feminist International Assistance Policy is a result of that deep dive into what was needed. Basically it is a more vigorous version of our long-standing approach on gender equality.

Supporting women’s organizations and movements in developing countries is a big part of the Policy. This is because women’s rights organizations and movements are often at the front lines of responses during crises. They have shown their strength and resilience in being able to mobilize quickly and effect change. And we have seen this play out in our own initiatives that focus on supporting women’s rights organizations, like the Equality Fund and Women’s Voice and Leadership.

This is how we will be able to advance gender equality. We need to see organizations from all sectors to support these diverse grassroots organizations. That is why Canada made an early contribution of an additional CAD$10 million towards the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) as part of our commitments at the Mexico Generation Equality Forum.

I am thrilled the UN Trust Fund and its grantees are taking gender into account in responding to local challenges stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak. They are also taking into account the increased burden of care for women, the risk of increased levels of domestic violence and the decreased ability of service providers to respond to sexual and gender-based violence.

Canada’s contribution helped increase the 2021 Call for Proposals, awarding 37 new grants in 27 countries and territories. In the end 65% of the grants went to women’s rights organizations.

Under the Action Coalition against Gender-Based Violence, Global Affairs Canada committed an additional CAD$10 million in support of the UN Trust Fund’s COVID-19 response, designed to bolster core capacities of civil society and women’s rights organizations responding to the increase in violence against women and girls in the context of the pandemic. How is partnership with the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women complementary to achieving goals set out in Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy?

One of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy’s major components is the commitment is to address the unacceptably high rates of sexual and gender-based violence, which we do through a human rights-based approach.

This is where the UN Trust Fund has been an important strategic partner for Canada in helping to address the gendered impacts of the pandemic, particularly the dramatic increase in sexual and gender-based violence.

The UN Trust Fund has been a leader in raising awareness of this shadow pandemic of sexual and gender-based violence globally, and amplifying non-traditional voices, particularly of those women’s rights organizations working on the front lines.

Through our partnership, the Trust Fund is reaching women’s rights organizations that Canada would not otherwise be able to reach, helping them adapt to COVID-19, achieve financial stability in their organizations and provide essential services to survivors in all their diversity. This is all happening in the complex contexts created by the COVID-19 pandemic. These initiatives align with Canada’s priorities for a feminist COVID-19 response, and integrates intersectionality throughout.

To this day, I still recall a message from one of the survivors who participated in the UN Trust Fund’s March 24, 2021 Stakeholder Exchange on the Impact of COVID-19 on Violence against Women and CSOs event, “we are all worthy.”

Canada is co-leading the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership that has set out a bold agenda for the next five years aiming to elevate and resource feminist movements and build Global Alliance to sustain that work on a longer term basis. As we’ve emerged from the Generation Equality Forum held in Paris between 30th June and 2nd July, what are your key takeaways from the Forum and next foreseeable steps in realizing the ambitious goals set forth?

The Generation Equality Forum has the potential to not only bring in new partners, but also to advance a new way of working — breaking down silos and disrupting power dynamics.

One of the things I am most excited and inspired by is hearing the voices of young women and adolescent girls, and the voices of diverse feminist organizations on the front lines of this important work.

The Forum provides us with an opportunity to make lasting change in the way we work, ensuring that we engage youth, adolescent girls and feminist organizations to inform the policies that are important to them. This is consistent with a feminist approach to working. We need to make sure we continue to prioritize this, now and throughout the implementation of the Forum.

This has also been an opportunity to work with partners in a truly collaborative way; to co-create solutions to challenging issues and really think about — if we were to do this right, if we were to really be ambitious, what would we say? What would we do? I was excited by the diversity of commitment makers across sectors and the bold and innovative commitments they brought to the table.

There was a big push to achieve outcomes and commitments in time for the Paris Forum, but we all need to maintain this momentum! We need to remain focused on implementation, accountability and continued engagement and harness this energy and spirit in the years to come.

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UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women

The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women is the only global grant-making mechanism dedicated to eradicating all forms of #VAWG. https://untf.unwomen.org/