Financing FIAP: Effective Development and Closing the Power/Gender Gap

Gender Equality, Inclusive Governance and the Law: Aligned for a Better World

2018 Annual Conference, January 22-23, 2018 

125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON

 

Tuesday January 22, 2017 - 3:00pm - Panel 3

 

Panel: Financing FIAP:  Effective Development and Closing the Power/Gender Gap

Speakers:

Chair: Steven Tipman, TFO Canada

Speakers:

Sonia Laszlo, International Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID), McGill University

Ted Jackson, E.T. Jackson and Associates Ltd

Karen Craggs-Milne, Global Group Director of Gender Equality Inclusion & Business Development, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS)
Description: 

FIAP outlines the Canadian government's feminist approach to international assistance.  The approach is focused on delivering a human rights-based and inclusive policies and programs and on challenging unequal power relations to best empower girls and women. To implement the new feminist approach, the policy commits to several new spending targets within existing aid budget. Concerns about there being a sufficient financial commitment to implement the new policy, reached a peak when the Canadian government announced a massive increase in the defence budget. 

The response from Minister Bibeau stated "our partners were asking not for money...but for leadership". In May 2017, just weeks before FIAP was announced, the Canadian Development Finance Institute’s was established to "enable partnerships with small and medium enterprises from the private sector", and to "promote investment in the countries that need it most, and ensure we reach the poorest and most vulnerable, especially women and girls.” A budget of $300 million over five years was allocated for the new Finance Institute.

The speakers in this session contribute to this debate with concrete ideas, insights and proposals to deliver an enabled Feminist Aid policy.

Biographies:

Steve Tipman is the Executive Director of TFO Canada and leads the organization in fulfilling its mission of improving lives through international trade.  Leading the successful execution of TFO Canada’s strategic and business plans, Steve is responsible for overall administration, strategic management, and reporting to the Board of Directors. With over 20 years of experience in both the private and non-profit sectors, Steve has spent much of his career working in the areas of international trade and development. He spent eight years working at Livingston International, a trade services company focused on customs brokerage and compliance. He also served as a Vice President with CARE Canada and President and CEO of Volunteer Canada.  He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of International Development Professionals. Steve holds an International Masters in Business Administration degree from the University of Ottawa and is fluently bilingual in both French and English.

Edward (Ted) Jackson is a university professor and management consultant specializing in social finance, social enterprise, small business, governance, gender equality, higher education and program evaluation.  A former tenured public policy faculty member and associate dean in the Faculty of Public Affairs at Carleton University, he is currently senior research fellow at Carleton, honorary associate with the Institute of Development Studies in the United Kingdom, and president of E. T. Jackson and Associates Ltd., an Ottawa-based international management consulting firm and founding corporate member of CAIDP.  Dr. Jackson has advised the Rockefeller and MasterCard foundations, the Canadian, Danish and Swiss development cooperation programs, Humanity United, WUSC, Digital Opportunity Trust and numerous government and non-governmental organizations.  He is co-author of Accelerating Impact (2012) and Private Capital for Sustainable Development (2016), and directed the design of an executive course on evaluating impact investing in Africa (see www.evaluatingimpactinvesting.org/syllabus).  He has advocated for putting gender equality at the centre of the mission of Canada’s new development finance institution. Ted Jackson has earned recognition for his leadership in graduate teaching, development management, community-development research, and community-university partnerships.

Professor Sonia Laszlo is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for the Study of International Development. Her research expertise covers many aspects of applied microeconomic analysis in economic development.  Specifically, she is currently working in two broad research areas: decision-making under uncertainty (namely concerning technology adoption among subsistence farmers) and the micro-economic effects of social policies and conditions (in the area of education, health and labour markets), with a focus on women. Prof. Laszlo has conducted her research in Peru, Kenya and in the Caribbean, using laboratory experiments, surveys or randomized controlled trials.

She is also a member of the Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche en Organizations (CIRANO) and the Grupo de Analysis para el Desarrollo (GRADE). In 2005 she co‐founded and has since been an executive member of the Canadian Development Economics Study Group (CDESG), which groups both academic and policy development economists in Canada

 

Karen Craggs-Milne, Global Group Director of Gender Equality, Inclusion & Business Development, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS)

Originally from Kenya, Karen is a White House recognized Gender Equality Changemaker (June 2016) and a Canadian Global Goodwill Ambassador (Jan 2018). With over 17 years global experience working across multiple sectors, she draws upon her wealth of practical experience and knowledge to enable organizations, programs and government policies to move towards transformative outcomes. Whether she is providing technical advice, doing community-based field work or training staff, Karen is a dynamic thought leader in this field who has developed innovative and easy-to-use frameworks and tools to facilitate intersectional approaches to gender equality and inclusion. She is considered a key go-to person for organizations seeking to understand and implement Canada's commitments to gender equality – domestically and internationally. 
In her role at AIMS, Karen leads on gender equality and inclusion across all Programs and a network of 10 entities (across South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana, Rwanda, Canada, UK and Germany). In 2015, Karen founded the ground breaking AIMS Women in STEM (AIMSWIS) Initiative - Africa's first pan-African Agenda for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) to foster collaboration among key actors on game changing interventions designed to accelerate gender equality in STEM in Africa.

Prior to AIMS, Karen worked at Plan International Canada where she led and managed the organization's rapidly growing gender equality portfolio and established a Gender Unit. Her contributions were instrumental in positioning Plan Canada as an international leader in gender equality and children's rights. Karen's initiatives were innovative and bold, reflecting her own signature passion and drive: she designed industry-leading  gender transformative projects for the "Because I am a Girl" Campaign and organized policy-changing technical roundtables in collaboration with sector leaders, NGOs and the Canadian government. To find out more about her work, please visit www.KarenCraggs.com.