La Francophonie is a group of 88 states and member governments and observers that share French as a common language, as well as values in common. Canada was one of the founding countries and an active member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (IOF).
Connections between Francophonie countries run deep and across industries. This includes Canada’s leadership in global health!
According to the CanWaCH Project Explorer, over the past decade, there have been 487 global development and humanitarian initiatives in 38 Francophonie low-and-middle-income countries.
Over the past decade, great progress has been made to improve the health, rights and wellbeing of women and children in Francophonie countries. COVID-19 threatens to set back this progress and there is plenty of work still to be done to address other areas of health like HIV, neglected tropical diseases and mental health.
The statistics presented in the blog post are based on data available from all projects in the CanWaCH Project Explorer which aims to capture the full spectrum of Canadian efforts in global health and gender equality. Please note that this includes both current and completed projects (2010-2020). This also includes initiatives funded by the Government of Canada and other funding sources.
