OTTAWA – Canada this year is slashing its guaranteed minimum international food aid commitment by one-third as budget cuts and changing priorities take hold.
In a new United Nations food aid convention taking effect July 1, Canada promises to donate at least the equivalent of 362,000 tonnes of wheat each year for the next five or seven years.
In 1986 and 1990 when previous agreements were signed, the country promised at least 544,000 tonnes of wheat or the equivalent.
According to a senior executive of the Canadian International Development Agency, it is a sign of the times.
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Ernest Loevinsohn, acting vice-president for multilateral aid at CIDA, said Canada is facing both budget cuts and a view that effective food aid is more important than quantity.
The 362,000 tonnes is a minimum which will be surpassed, he said. Emergency donations will be in addition.
“It is a floor, not a ceiling, but it also reflects some new realities,” he said.
Not all of Canada’s contributions are included because canola donations do not count in the UN calculations, said Loevinsohn.
And Canada is concentrating more on nutritional issues, including vitamins, than on simple volumes of grain, he said.
Still, United Nations officials note that while hundreds of millions of people live in poverty and hunger around the world, the commitment of richer countries to help has been slipping.
In the new food aid convention, total annual commitments of food to be distributed are 4.85 million tonnes compared to 6.818 million tonnes almost a decade ago.
Commitment from the United States has shown the largest drop, from 4.05 million tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes.
In Canada, government support for aid programs also is falling.
The one-third decline in commitment to the food aid convention is merely the first visible evidence.
In the February budget, the government announced a 20 percent, $500 million cut in foreign aid budgeting during the next three years.
“There is no question we are facing very severe cuts,” said Loevinsohn. “We are told to do more with less but there are obvious limits to that. In future, our ability to respond to emergencies over and above the minimum commitments clearly will be limited.”
