Canada has announced a major increase in government support for East African drought relief, making it the second largest donor in the world.
On July 22, international co-operation minister Bev Oda announced a $50 million contribution and a commitment to match Canadian donations made between July 6 and Sept. 16.
The money is on top of an earlier $22.35 million pledge.
She had just finished visiting the Dadaab refuge camp in Kenya, which was built for 90,000 refugees and is now straining with close to 400,000, making it the world’s largest refugee camp.
Read Also
Canola oil transloading facility opens
DP World just opened its new canola oil transload facility at the Port of Vancouver. It can ship one million tonnes of the commodity per year.
Oxfam Canada praised Canada for showing leadership in responding to the drought. It said Canada’s $72.35 million commitment and its promise to match future funding is second only to the United Kingdom in responses to the Horn of Africa drought.
Oda also predicted a strong Canadian response to the offer of matching government funds.
“We know that Canadians will respond. The stories, the pictures, the faces that we saw today are unbelievable.”
Aid groups that had been pressing for a $40 million commitment were thrilled with the government commitment.
Oxfam Canada said the need is great and the world has been slow to respond, but Canada is leading.
“The situation is critical and much more needs to be done to prevent people from dying in massive numbers,” said Oxfam Canada executive director Robert Fox.
The recently formed Humanitarian Coalition called on Canadians to be as generous as their government.
“The Humanitarian Coalition encourages the Canadian public to mirror the government’s commitment in order to further help the most vulnerable people affected by the crisis, including women and children.”
Oda said $25 million will go to the United Nations’ World Food Programme for emergency food aid and $25 million to other UN agencies for non-food aid including water, sanitation services and shelter.
When asked if a better response to recurring famines would be a permanent international fund to quickly intervene in crises, she said Canada is a strong contributor to international agencies such as the World Food Programme and depends on the WFP and aid groups on the front lines to advise when crises are developing and what is needed.
“Canada is the second single largest country that contributes to the World Food Programme,” she said.
“We are a very, very big part of the WFP. They know they can count on us and they know that we will enable them to access what they need at the location where they are needed.”
