Agency’s new priority | The international development agency says it will continue improving food security as well as resource development
Canada’s international co-oper-ation minister says the government is not reducing its commitment to food aid and international agricultural development despite a broader shift in priorities to resource company support.
Julian Fantino said the Canadian International Development Agency’s commitment to hunger reduction and developing country agricultural improvement remains strong.
“We can see improvements in hunger reduction, but I think it is very precarious and we still have a huge amount of work ahead of us and this is not the time to revel in success,” he said. “It is a time to renew our commitment and effort and we are doing that.”
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Fantino, a former senior police official in Ontario and then associate minister of defence before being shifted to international co-operation, recently announced a new priority that will see CIDA supporting natural resource companies working to help developing countries develop their resource sectors.
Critics denounced the shift as a move away from development toward helping Canadian companies exploit developing world resources, but Fantino said in a Toronto speech it is a way to promote economic development that will help developing countries help themselves.
He announced a new Canadian International Institute for Extractive Industries and Development that will be centred at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University.
It will work, with CIDA’s help, to connect non-governmental organizations with Canadian resource extraction companies to develop projects that “increase the capacity of developing countries to manage natural resources in a way that is sustainable and fuels economic growth.”
However, Fantino said in an interview that this new focus will not diminish the agency’s commitment to helping combat world hunger and agricultural under-development.
“We’ll keep working on that,” he said.
“The extractive announcement today in no way, shape or form will take away from our commitment to continue working on the food security front.”
In mid-November, Fantino paid his first visit to the Winnipeg office of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, CIDA’s primary partner in delivering development and food aid dollars in the world on a matching basis.
Last year, CIDA signed a new five-year agreement with the foodgrains bank.
“We have been connected to them for 30 years or so and we have committed $125 million in support over the next five years,” he said. “We are as committed today as we ever have been.”
Fantino said agency efforts through non-governmental organization partners could expand funding program criteria to include an emphasis on providing agricultural inputs, machinery and programs to help women become part of the food security solution.
However, providing funds through NGOs and the World Food Programme to populations facing starvation or malnutrition because of war or drought will also remain part of the mandate.
“We will continue to work until we no longer have situations like we just had in (African) Sahel where we averted a major disaster.”
