Canada deaf to growing hunger crisis, UN aide says

from the Globe and Mail

SINCLAIR STEWART AND PAUL WALDIE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

NEW YORK and TORONTO — A key adviser to the United Nations has sharply criticized Canada for abandoning its leadership role in international development, and urged the country to step up its level of aid to poorer countries in the face of soaring food prices.

Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world's best-known economists, accused the Harper government yesterday of adopting an “antagonistic,” and occasionally “mocking,” tone toward the implementation of the UN's Millennium Development Goals, a group of objectives aimed at alleviating problems ranging from poverty to global warming.

“We've seen essentially no global leadership from Canada on poverty, hunger, disease, climate change and foreign assistance,” Mr. Sachs, who is a special adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said in an interview at his Manhattan home. “This has been a huge surprise for me as a lifelong admirer of Canada, that we don't see the ambition of the Canadian people manifested in Canada's policies right now.”

The UN has issued an urgent plea for food aid because of an unprecedented rise in grain prices. The agency's World Food Program, which dispenses food to developing countries, said it needs an additional $755-million (U.S.) just to meet its annual target. The sudden rise in prices for corn, wheat, rice and soybeans, among other crops, has sparked violent protests in Haiti, Africa and parts of Asia.

“This steeply rising price of food — it has developed into a real global crisis,” Mr. Ban said yesterday in Vienna. He added that the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will meet next week in Bern, Switzerland, in an effort to address the problem.

“We must take immediate action in a concerted way,” the Secretary-General said.

Canada donated $176-million (Canadian) to the UN food program last year, making it the third-largest contributor. International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda has yet to respond to the latest appeal, but a spokeswoman said the minister would be making an announcement next week. It is expected that Canada will increase its aid significantly to help with the deficit.

The Canadian government has committed to providing the program with the cash equivalent of 420,000 tonnes of wheat annually, but it has missed that target several times. (Under current conditions, buying that much wheat today would cost roughly 60 per cent more than last year.)

In 2005, Canada also revamped its food aid policy. Until then, 90 per cent of Canadian food aid had to be bought from Canadian producers. The change dropped that quota to 50 per cent, making it easier for aid agencies to respond to emergencies by sourcing food closer to the affected region.

Mr. Sachs, among others, has been a vocal critic of the “blank cheque” approach to foreign aid, and has argued that donor countries should instead be focusing on sustainable development and support for agriculture and research.

However, he said his pleas for Canada to take a special role in agricultural matters have fallen upon deaf ears dating back to the government of former prime minister Paul Martin.

“Canada did not show leadership on critical issues, like agriculture, for example, where I was shocked by discussions I had in Ottawa,” he said. “Then the [Martin] government fell, and this government has come in and it's been antagonistic, rhetorically and in policy. It's almost mocking, some times, with these objectives.”

Despite Canada's status as one of the larger donors, it has failed to meet a commitment to donate 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product to the Millennium Project, despite a resource boom over the past few years that generated considerable economic wealth.

Mr. Sachs said he was told on one occasion by a cabinet minister that Ottawa couldn't boost its aid to meet this target because it would threaten the country's budget surplus.

The current food crisis has forced many aid organizations to cut their assistance programs this year because they can't afford to buy as much grain as they used. In addition to wheat, other crops have also seen enormous price increases. Canola has nearly doubled while corn, rice and soybean have also reached record prices this year.

“We are in this terrible dilemma,” said Jim Cornelius, executive director of the Winnipeg-based Canadian Foodgrains Bank, which provides food aid to dozens of countries on behalf of 15 church organizations.

Mr. Cornelius said the charity received a record amount of cash donations from Canadians last year, but the money doesn't go as far as it used to. “If we don't see some fairly significant changes [to grain prices] there's probably a 40-per-cent decline in the amount of food we can provide,” he said.

Drought, increased demand from countries like China and India, and the diversion of corn into ethanol production have all been blamed for the unprecedented spike. Yet others argue this situation has been exacerbated by massive speculation by big investors.