Anti-Black Racism and Investment in Black Communities

Toronto built Canada's first municipal anti-Black-racism plan — has it actually narrowed the gaps Black residents face.

DRAFTThe evidence fileThe playbook

Claim coverage as of 2026-07-14: 1 carried-forward document (this page’s carried-forward master briefing (anti black racism), cited throughout, with specific figures superseded where this review's live discovery found a more current City-published number for the same metric — see "Key tensions/tradeoffs" below); 6 new 2026 primary-source findings from this review's live discovery (NEW-2026-1 through NEW-2026-6), each with an inline source quote, not yet promoted to any claims register (this page has no formally registered claims — see "Open questions / data gaps"). Coverage: breadth not formally checked in this review — this draft establishes claim-level coverage and fresh-discovery integration only. Cui Bono: 0 beneficiary entities identified (0 ESTABLISHED / 0 REPORTED) — see "Cui Bono" section below for the honest reasoning.

Written per this library's standard page structure, a later review, 2026-07-14. VOICE CARE applied per this review's page-author instructions: where this document states what Black Torontonians or Black-led organizations want, need, or experience, it prefers those organizations' and the City's own community-consultation record over outside characterization.

Scope

This page’s neutral scope question: does Toronto's Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism — Canada's first municipal anti-Black-racism strategy — represent activity that has measurably narrowed the documented disparities Black Torontonians face, or activity that has built institutional capacity and delivered discrete programs without yet closing those disparities, and what does the City's own most recent (2026) reporting say about which is true. This document covers: the current, directly-checked status of the Action Plan and its successor planning process as of 2026; the City's own most recent disparity findings; Black-community investment vehicles (the federal Black Entrepreneurship Program, the Black Opportunity Fund) at their current scale; and the Little Jamaica cultural-district and anti-displacement initiative's actual, checked status (not assumed complete). It hands off, rather than duplicates: the detailed over-policing evidence and reform agenda to the community-safety and police-accountability pages (per the inherited document's own framing, preserved here); the Black-women-specific and Black-2SLGBTQ+-specific intersectional experience to this page’s Domain O sibling documents.

Current state

The inherited case, and what this review's live discovery updates

The carried-forward master briefing's core claims — that anti-Black racism in Toronto is systemic and documented across policing, income, health, education, and child welfare; that Toronto's 2017 Action Plan was Canada's first municipal anti-Black-racism strategy; that "delivered actions" is not the same claim as "closed disparities"; and that Black-community investment (entrepreneurship, Black-led capital, Little Jamaica) is the necessary complement to confronting racism — are cited here as directionally sound and are not re-litigated. This review's live discovery targeted the plan's current (2026) status specifically, since the inherited document's own $25.8M and "96% delivered" figures were written before the City's most recent reporting cycle closed.

The documented disparities themselves, carried forward from the inherited briefing

The inherited master briefing's own evidentiary base for why this page exists at all — the specific, cited disparities across policing, income, health, education, and child welfare — is restored here in full, since it is foundational rather than secondary context. On policing: the Ontario Human Rights Commission's and the Toronto Police Service's own data show Black people "~2.2× over-represented in enforcement actions and subjected to use of force at roughly 4–5× the rate of white residents," with "carding/street-checks over-representing Black people even in low-crime, predominantly white neighbourhoods" [Citing OHRC, "A Collective Impact"/"From Impact to Action"]. ⚠️ still being checked — this review did not independently re-confirm these ratios against a current OHRC source (see "Open questions" below); the detailed tracking of this figure and the reform agenda around it lives in the community-safety and police-accountability pages, which this document hands off to rather than duplicates. On income: the Black population is over-represented among those earning below a "thriving income," and, per the inherited document's citation of the Wellesley Institute, "even with equal education, Black men face the greatest income disadvantage" [Citing Wellesley Institute, "No One Left Behind"]. ⚠️ still being checked — this figure was not independently re-checked against a current Wellesley Institute source in this review. Beyond policing and income, the inherited document also documents "worse health and mental-health outcomes, poorer education outcomes, precarious employment, and over-representation in the criminal-justice, mental-health, and child-welfare systems" [From this library’s earlier research] — this review's own live discovery did not independently re-confirm those specific domains (health, mental health, education, child welfare, criminal justice), but did find an adjacent, City-confirmed disparity finding covering a related but distinct set of domains: the City's own April 2026 Year Five Update states Black Torontonians remain "significantly overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness," with "higher rates of food insecurity" and "elevated unemployment — particularly among youth" [NEW-2026-1]. This document presents the two findings side by side, as complementary evidence of disproportionate outcomes from two different reporting periods and partially-overlapping domains (employment is common to both; homelessness and food security are not among the inherited document's own named categories), rather than treating NEW-2026-1 as reconfirming the inherited document's specific list.

The Action Plan's current status, checked directly against the City's own April 2026 Year Five Update

The City of Toronto's Economic and Community Development Committee received and adopted, on April 9, 2026, a staff report titled "Toronto Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism: Year Five Update," covering the plan's final implementation period (2023-2024) and confirming progress from 2018-2024 [NEW-2026-1, City of Toronto, Agenda Item 2026.EC27.4, adopted April 9, 2026, accessed 2026-07-14]. This is the single most current, directly-fetched primary source on the plan's status available to this review, and this document treats it as superseding the inherited document's own figures where the two differ on the same metric. The report states plainly: "Toronto's Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism is Canada's first municipal strategy dedicated to addressing systemic anti-Black racism and improving access, outcomes, and life opportunities for Black Torontonians" [NEW-2026-1] — confirming the inherited document's "Canada's first" claim directly from the City's own 2026 language, not merely from the 2017-era framing. The inherited document's own structural description of the original 2017 plan is restored here since the 2026 update report does not restate it in full: the plan comprised 22 recommendations and 80 actions across five issue areas — youth, health/community services, jobs/income, policing/justice, and Black leadership — and was built with 800+ Black residents across 41 community conversations, itself grounded in 41 years of prior reports on anti-Black racism in the city [From this library’s earlier research]. On overall delivery, the report states: "Over its lifespan, the Action Plan delivered 96 per cent of identified actions, strengthened interdivisional coordination, expanded partnerships with Black-led and Black-serving organizations, and built durable institutional capacity to apply an anti-Black racism lens across City operations" [NEW-2026-1] — the same 96% figure the inherited document cites, now confirmed current as of the plan's actual close-out reporting rather than an interim figure. Critically, and directly on this page’s own "delivered vs. closed" question, the same 2026 report does not claim the disparities have narrowed: "Despite this progress, Black Torontonians continue to experience disproportionate and persistent outcomes across key determinants of wellbeing, including housing stability, food security, employment, and crisis response. Black residents remain significantly overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness, experience higher rates of food insecurity, and face elevated unemployment — particularly among youth" [NEW-2026-1]. The report's own stated reasoning for why is structural, not a failure narrative: "These outcomes reflect structural and systemic conditions that cannot be addressed through time-limited initiatives or business as usual service delivery alone and underscore the continued need for coordinated, targeted, and sustained municipal action" [NEW-2026-1].

The renewed 10-Year Plan: further off than the inherited document's framing suggests

The inherited master briefing describes a "renewed 10-year plan... now in development," which this review confirms but with a materially more specific and more distant timeline than the inherited framing implies. The April 2026 report states: "staff are advancing work toward a renewed 10 Year Toronto Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism, to be brought forward for Council consideration in Q2 2027" [NEW-2026-1] — meaning the renewed plan, as of this review's live-discovery date (2026-07-14), does not yet exist as an adopted Council document and is not expected to reach Council for close to a year. The same report is explicit about what the renewal is meant to change: it will "build on lessons learned between 2018 and 2024, shift from foundational capacity building toward deeper, measurable systems change, and provide a clear framework to address persistent disparities" [NEW-2026-1] — language that itself concedes the first plan was "foundational capacity building" rather than a plan that targeted measurable disparity reduction directly, a more candid self-assessment than "96% delivered" alone conveys.

Legacy initiatives extending beyond the original plan's timeline

The 2026 report also names three "Action Plan Legacy Initiatives" that "extend beyond the original Action Plan timelines and demonstrate the scale, duration, and coordination required to achieve lasting systems change": the Black-Mandated Funding Framework, the Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Plan, and the Growing in Place Initiative [NEW-2026-1]. A companion 2023 City news release on the Year Four update — the most recent point at which the City published itemized dollar and participant figures for this review to directly quote — states the plan had, to that point, "leveraged a cumulative investment of $33.3 million including $7.6 million to support Black communities in 2022," and that "18 Black-mandated organizations access[ed] $1.6 million in operating funds" through the Black-Mandated Funding Framework pilot, that "more than $200,000" went to "community-led Black housing initiatives and partnerships to address displacement... in Little Jamaica and other Black communities," and that the City had provided "anti-Black racism training to 7,430 staff in 2022, with a total of 27,303 trained since 2018" [NEW-2026-2, City of Toronto news release, "City of Toronto Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism delivers improved outcomes for Black communities in Year Four, sets Year Five priorities," June 14, 2023, accessed 2026-07-14]. This document flags a discrepancy rather than silently reconciling it: the inherited master briefing's own $25.8M and 9,000+-staff-trained figures do not match this directly-fetched 2023 City release's $33.3 million cumulative and 27,303-total-trained figures for what appears to be an overlapping or later reporting period — this review cannot determine from the sources fetched whether the inherited figures reflect an earlier snapshot, a different accounting boundary, or a since-superseded number, and states both rather than picking one.

Black-community investment vehicles, checked at current (2026) scale

The federal Black Entrepreneurship Program's current figures, confirmed via direct fetch of the government's own February 2026 statement, read: "Since its launch in 2021, the Black Entrepreneurship Program has already supported more than 24,000 Black entrepreneurs across the country through mentorship, training and financing. Through the Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund alone, over $70 million in financing has been approved across more than 800 loans" [NEW-2026-3, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, statement by Minister Rechie Valdez, February 3, 2026, accessed 2026-07-14] — confirming the inherited document's 24,000+/$70M+ figures directly and adding the previously-uncited detail that this is "across more than 800 loans," and that the program "has been renewed... with a significant federal investment of $189 million" [NEW-2026-3], matching the inherited document's $189M renewal figure. The same statement names an intersectional barrier explicitly, in the minister's own words: "many Black entrepreneurs continue to face, particularly Black women and 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs, who often encounter compounded barriers when seeking to access capital and growth opportunities" [NEW-2026-3] — a direct, current, government-sourced statement of the intersectional point the inherited document's own "Equity & distribution" section makes more generally. Alongside the federal program, the inherited document also names Black-led capital and organizations more broadly — specifically the Black Opportunity Fund and FACE — as vehicles that "channel investment into Black businesses and non-profits" [From this library’s earlier research], and names Black-led, culturally-responsive service delivery (citing TAIBU Community Health Centre and Black youth and family services as models) as delivering better outcomes than generic programming because it reaches Black communities more effectively and reflects the "nothing about us without us" design principle [From this library’s earlier research]. Neither the Black Opportunity Fund's current scale nor TAIBU's current program footprint was independently re-verified against a primary source in this review. ⚠️ still being checked

Little Jamaica: the study's actual status, checked directly rather than assumed complete

The inherited master briefing characterizes Little Jamaica as "hollowed by the Eglinton LRT construction" without stating the current status of the City's own response. This review's direct fetch of the City's Little Jamaica & the Eglinton West Neighbourhoods study page finds the page itself last modified February 23, 2024, and states the process remains incomplete: a "Final Consultant's Report" on a Little Jamaica Cultural District Plan was completed and made available, but "City staff are currently reviewing the details of the report," and the page's own status list shows the "Final Little Jamaica Cultural District Plan" itself as "to be developed" — not yet adopted by Council as of the page's own most recent update [NEW-2026-4, City of Toronto, "Little Jamaica & the Eglinton West Neighbourhoods," last modified 2024-02-23, accessed 2026-07-14]. The same page confirms the scale of business disruption the process responds to only in general terms ("significant closures of Black-owned businesses over the past few years, the impacts to businesses from construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, and rising commercial and residential rents") without a specific closure percentage the City itself states as fact [NEW-2026-4] — this document does not import a specific closure percentage from secondary academic or advocacy sources into this City-sourced paragraph, since the City's own page does not state one; a specific "40 to 45 per cent" closure figure appears in secondary academic literature on the topic but was not independently verified against a primary source in this review and is not asserted here as a City-confirmed figure. The page does confirm concrete, already-delivered federal support: "the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario announced it will provide $19 million to the City of Toronto for much-needed relief and support for small retail-based businesses," and separately, "the City is working with the FedDev Ontario program to direct $1 million investment for the Revitalization of Little Jamaica in collaboration with the Black Business and Professional Association" [NEW-2026-4].

Jurisdiction, targeting, and the equity/intersectionality argument, carried forward from the inherited briefing

The inherited master briefing is explicit that the City's own levers are real but bounded: the deepest disparities sit in systems the City does not control — policing (provincially governed, though the City funds and the Board oversees), health, education, child welfare, and the justice system are all provincial or federal — so the City's own role is "its own systems (employment, services, youth, procurement), Black community investment, coordination, and advocacy" [From this library’s earlier research]. The inherited document also flags that targeted, Black-specific investment is evidence-aligned but politically contested (some argue for universal over targeted approaches), and must be well-designed to reach intended communities, avoid capture, and build durable Black-owned wealth rather than one-off grants [From this library’s earlier research]. On equity and distribution, the inherited document is explicit that the agenda must be intersectional and asset-based, not flattening or deficit-only: Black communities in Toronto are diverse across African, Caribbean, multi-generational Black Canadian, class, gender, faith, immigration status, and ability, and disadvantage falls unevenly — Black women face specific income and caregiving barriers (and the greatest thriving-income disadvantage in some analyses), Black 2SLGBTQ+ people face compounded racism and anti-queer bias, and Black disabled, Black newcomer, and low-income Black residents face compounded barriers, while Black youth and children are acutely affected through child welfare, education, and policing [From this library’s earlier research]. ⚠️ still being checked (none of these intersectional claims were independently re-checked against a current primary source in this review; this page’s Domain O sibling documents on gender equity and 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion do not currently carry Black-specific intersectional findings of their own, so this material is restored here rather than treated as handed off). The inherited document also insists the agenda center Black leadership and accountability — "nothing about us without us" as both a justice principle and a design requirement, with the work resourced and led by Black communities rather than performative or staff-led — and that it not reduce Black communities to disadvantage alone, but also recognize Black excellence, culture, joy, and contribution [From this library’s earlier research].

Toronto: the case for and against

Section merged 2026-08-11 from a companion Toronto-specific brief (Lane L2a Toronto brief-merge pass).

FOR:

AGAINST:

Toronto-specific figures: The City's own directly-fetched 2023 release states a "$33.3 million" cumulative Action Plan investment figure, including "$7.6 million to support Black communities in 2022" [NEW-2026-2] — a figure that does not match the inherited master briefing's own "$25.8M+" figure, a discrepancy this brief states rather than resolves (see AGAINST, above). Within that total, the Black-Mandated Funding Framework pilot cost "$1.6 million" for "18 Black-mandated organizations" [NEW-2026-2]. Federally, the Black Entrepreneurship Program has approved "over $70 million in financing... across more than 800 loans" since 2021, now renewed with "a significant federal investment of $189 million" [NEW-2026-3]. Little Jamaica-specific federal support totals a confirmed "$19 million" from FedDev Ontario for small retail-based businesses generally, plus a separate "$1 million" earmarked for Little Jamaica's revitalization specifically [NEW-2026-4]. No single City document isolates a current, complete cost figure for the renewed 10-Year Action Plan, since it does not yet exist as an adopted document.

Toronto-relevant precedents:

Toronto bottom line: Toronto's Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism is a genuinely confirmed municipal first with a high, City-verified activity-completion rate, but the City's own most current (2026) reporting is explicit that the disparities the plan exists to address have not measurably narrowed over its six-year run, and attributes this candidly to structural conditions rather than plan failure. The renewed plan that is supposed to shift toward outcome accountability does not yet exist and is roughly a year from Council consideration. Federal Black-entrepreneurship financing and the City's own targeted Black-Mandated Funding Framework are real, scaling assets with concrete, checkable figures; Little Jamaica's protective planning mechanism remains the weakest link, still "to be developed" years into the process. The defensible synthesis, cited directly from the City's own language rather than this brief's inference: "delivered" is not "closed," and the City's own 2026 report already says so.

Toronto-specific uncertainties:

Key tensions / tradeoffs

The inherited document's cumulative-investment figure and this review's directly-fetched City figures do not match, and this document states the discrepancy rather than picking one. The inherited master briefing states "$25.8M+ invested" and "9,000+ staff trained." This review's direct fetch of the City's own June 2023 Year Four release states a "$33.3 million" cumulative investment figure and "27,303" staff trained since 2018 [NEW-2026-2] — both larger than the inherited figures, for what should be an earlier or overlapping reporting period. This is exactly the kind of cross-source figure discrepancy this template's citation discipline requires be surfaced, not silently resolved; a future Verify pass should determine which figure reflects which specific accounting boundary (e.g., whether the inherited figure was drawn from an earlier interim report, or reflects a narrower spending category) before either number is treated as the confirmed total.

The Action Plan's own 2026 self-assessment concedes the "activity vs. outcome" gap directly, more candidly than "96% delivered" alone conveys. The inherited document's central honest argument — that "delivered" is not "closed" — is not this review's own inference; it is now the City's own stated 2026 language. The Year Five Update report states outcomes "remain... disproportionate and persistent" and explicitly attributes this to "structural and systemic conditions that cannot be addressed through time-limited initiatives... alone" [NEW-2026-1]. This is a genuine convergence between the inherited document's critical framing and the City's own most recent self-report — not a tension this review had to manufacture, but also not one to overstate: the same report frames this as a reason to continue and deepen the work (the renewed 10-year plan), not as a finding that the first plan failed.

The renewed plan is materially further from adoption than "in development" suggests, which matters for anyone assessing near-term accountability. The inherited document's "renewed 10-year plan... now in development" phrasing is accurate but underspecifies the timeline: the City's own 2026 report places Council consideration at "Q2 2027" [NEW-2026-1] — meaning, as of this document's writing (2026-07-14), roughly a year still separates the current moment from a Council-adopted successor plan with any new outcome targets. Anyone treating "outcome accountability is coming" as an imminent, already-secured change should read this timeline directly rather than assume it.

The Little Jamaica cultural-district process remains open and unresolved, not a completed protective framework. The inherited document's brief mention of Little Jamaica as a "cautionary case" is accurate but does not convey that, per the City's own most recently updated study page, no final, Council-adopted Cultural District Plan exists yet [NEW-2026-4] — the protective mechanism itself is still "to be developed," years after the process began in 2020-2021, which is itself a relevant data point about how long a formal City protective-planning process can take relative to the pace of the displacement pressure it responds to.

What the evidence does and doesn't support

Well-supported: that Toronto's Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism is genuinely, currently confirmed by the City itself as "Canada's first municipal strategy" of its kind, and that it delivered a City-confirmed 96% of its identified actions over its 2018-2024 lifespan, is well-supported by direct 2026 primary-source confirmation [NEW-2026-1]. That the federal Black Entrepreneurship Program has supported 24,000+ Black entrepreneurs and approved $70M+ in financing across 800+ loans, with a $189M renewal, is well-supported by a direct February 2026 government statement [NEW-2026-3]. That Black Torontonians continue to experience disproportionate outcomes in housing stability, food security, and employment as of the City's own most recent (2026) reporting is well-supported directly from the City's own language, not from outside characterization [NEW-2026-1].

Inherited and not independently re-verified this review: the OHRC policing-disparity ratios (~2.2× enforcement, ~4-5× use of force) and the Wellesley Institute "thriving income" income-gap finding (persisting even with equal education) are carried forward from the inherited master briefing with its own citations intact (see "The documented disparities themselves" above), marked ⚠️ still being checked since this review did not re-fetch either source directly; the same applies to the Black Opportunity Fund's and TAIBU Community Health Centre's current scale.

Thin or contested: the exact cumulative dollar figure the Action Plan has invested to date is contested between two sources this review located — the inherited document's $25.8M+ and this review's directly-fetched 2023 City release's $33.3M — and is not resolved here (see "Key tensions/tradeoffs" above). The specific "40 to 45 per cent" Little Jamaica business-closure figure circulating in secondary academic literature was not independently confirmed against a primary source in this review and should not be cited as City-confirmed. Whether the renewed 10-year plan will in fact include the outcome-level accountability targets the inherited document's own "what determines success" section calls for is not yet knowable — the City's own report states an intent to "shift... toward deeper, measurable systems change" [NEW-2026-1], but the renewed plan itself does not yet exist for this review to check against that stated intent.

International context

1. Treaties/frameworks touched. This issue directly engages the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which Canada ratified in 1970 and which obligates states parties to "pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms" (ICERD Article 2) and to ensure "effective protection and remedies" against racial discrimination (Article 6). The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) reviews Canada periodically; Canada is also a stated participant in the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024, theme: "Recognition, Justice and Development") — and the City of Toronto's own Little Jamaica study page states directly that the Eglinton West/Little Jamaica study "is being advanced by the City of Toronto as a legacy project of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent," and that "the City proclaimed its official recognition of the International Decade on March 25, 2019" [NEW-2026-4] — a genuine, City-confirmed, directly-pinned engagement with a specific named UN framework, not a manufactured connection.

2. Best global comparators. This review's live discovery did not locate a directly-fetched primary-source study of a comparator city's anti-Black-racism municipal strategy with independently confirmed outcome data at the depth this review applied to Toronto's own plan; naming one without that same rigor would import an unearned comparator. What can be stated honestly: Toronto's own City materials and the inherited master briefing both describe Toronto's 2017 plan as a genuine North American municipal first in its scope (five issue areas, 22 recommendations, 80 actions, developed with 800+ Black residents), which is itself the relevant comparator finding — Toronto is more often cited as the model than as a follower on this specific "comprehensive municipal anti-Black-racism action plan" mechanism. A future pass with dedicated capacity should directly fetch and check any claimed U.S. or UK municipal comparator (several major U.S. cities adopted racial-equity action plans following 2020, but this review did not independently verify any specific one against a primary source, so none is named here as an established comparator).

3. What Toronto/Ontario can steal shamelessly. Toronto's own Black-Mandated Funding Framework — a funding stream specifically directed at Black-mandated (not merely Black-serving) organizations, which the City's own 2023 release states enabled "18 Black-mandated organizations accessing $1.6 million in operating funds" specifically to "increase the capacity of Black-serving agencies to expand services" [NEW-2026-2] — is itself a concrete, transferable mechanism design other municipalities could adopt, distinguishing funding targeted at organizations actually governed and led by Black communities from funding merely earmarked for Black-serving programming generally. This is a description of what Toronto's own mechanism already does, not a recommendation that it do more of it — that judgment belongs to a card, not this document's prose.

Cui Bono — who profits from this problem persisting

No beneficiary entity is identified in this backgrounder. This review's live discovery did not locate any ESTABLISHED or REPORTED finding, from a court, regulator, auditor, or credible investigative outlet, naming a specific company, contractor, or entity that financially benefits from anti-Black racism or the underinvestment in Black communities persisting in Toronto specifically. This is stated as an honest empty result, not a defect: per this document's own binding Cui Bono discipline, "equity-investment gaps are usually resourcing failures, not extraction," and nothing in the sources this review fetched — the City's own Action Plan reporting, the federal entrepreneurship-program statement, or the Little Jamaica study page — surfaces an entity profiting from the disparities' persistence in the pointer-never-author sense this section requires. Unlike a leaf where a specific contractor holds a per-diem shelter contract or a specific landlord profits from vacancy, this issue's own evidence base points to underfunding and incomplete institutional follow-through (the "activity vs. outcome" gap named above) rather than to an identifiable extractive beneficiary. A future pass with dedicated Accountability Observatory capacity could investigate more targeted questions this review did not have scope for (e.g., procurement patterns within the Action Plan's own vendor relationships) — but nothing located here rises to a citable ESTABLISHED or REPORTED finding, and none is manufactured to fill this section.

Open questions / data gaps

Claim-index appendix