We made an informal ATIP request for the previously released briefing notes (available by request from ATIP here) from the Minister of International Development’s Roundtable with Humanitarian Organizations, which took place on January 13, 2021. The purpose of the meeting was to “have a high-level round-table style discussion with a group of key Canadian civil society partners on key humanitarian topics.”
The notes provided some very interesting facts, including:
- The scale of humanitarian need around the world has tripled since the last decade;
- The Global Humanitarian Overview for 2022 indicated needs totaling $41 billion, targeting 183 million people;
- In 2020, Canada contributed over $50 million to 16 UN Country-Based pooled funds (a nine-fold increase since 2016);
- In August 2021, Canada allocated $130 million in humanitarian assistance to respond to growing global food insecurity;
- Canada remains committed to providing needs-based humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. At the time of the release of the Roundtable objectives, Canada had recently announced an additional $56 million to help address the worsening humanitarian crisis;
- Canada provided almost $1.1 billion in humanitarian funding during the 2020-21 fiscal year; and
- Of the total humanitarian funding in 2020-21, $227 million was provided to non-governmental organizations.
Among other things, what we can take from these statistics is that the needs placed on the charitable and non-profit sectors will only continue to grow.