Talking Points for a Media Technical Briefing in Advance of the Muskoka Accountability Report Release

The Honourable Beverley J. Oda Minister of International Cooperation

Ottawa, Ontario
June 20, 2010


Thank you. Merci.

As the Minister for International Cooperation, I believe that 2010 is a critical year on many international development fronts.

10 years have passed - since the UN adopted 8 Millennium Development Goals, targeted for 2015.

To date, we have seen progress made on many, -uneven progress on some - and slower progress on a few.

Since taking office, our government set out to make its international development more effective

To solve present and future development challenges, we must go beyond money.

To help more people in need and to deliver better results for them, we must reach get greater effectiveness and demonstrate more accountability.

That is why, at the G8 Development Minister's meeting in Halifax, we agreed that determined political action is needed to deliver on greater accountability.

In Halifax, we emphasized that it is more important than ever to pay what we pledge and to work on improving our accountability to achieve sustainable outcomes.

This is particularly true today - when taxpayers are demanding value for aid dollar.

We need to get more health for our dollar, more education, - more food - and stronger economic growth - delivered in developing countries, their neighborhoods and in their communities.

Through a strengthened Effectiveness Agenda for CIDA, we now have a greater focus on priorities, effectiveness and more accountability - in how we spend aid dollars.

Through the leadership of the G8, similar steps are being taken to increase the effectiveness of our collective international efforts, with accountability at the forefront.

This is a message I underscored at my meetings in Halifax, and it's one, I know, Prime Minister Harper will emphasize in Huntsville and in Toronto, later this month.

That is why the Muskoka Accountability Report is important to Canada and our G8 partners.

It represents a significant milestone in ensuring that G8 efforts on development remain transparent and accountable to achieve sustainable long-term outcomes.

As the group of major donor countries, the G8 believes it should be held to account for commitments they have made.

Fulfilling commitments reflects the political will behind the commitment.

This report shows that Canada has a strong record on delivering on G8 commitments in health, education, food security, peace and security, and to Africa.

For example:

This year, we are delivering on our commitment to double Canada's international assistance to $5 billion, the highest level ever.

We met our Gleneagles commitment, in 2008-2009, to double aid to Africa to $2.1 billion, a year ahead of the deadline, and we continued to maintain that level of support in 2009.

Since April 2008, Canada's food aid has been completely untied, and we are on track to fully untying all of our aid, by 2012-2013.

The OECD estimates that untied aid can increase the buying power of our food aid dollars by 35% and other non-food aid dollars by up to 30%.

Untying our aid is a commitment we made and it is a commitment we are keeping.

Canada has a strong record on global food security.

At the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, we made an incremental commitment of $600 million to support sustainable agricultural development, for a total pledge of $1.18 billion over 3 years.

Canada then responded quickly in response to global needs and has already disbursed over $800 million of this pledge.

Canada's policy leadership and significant financial support to the health sector has improved the health of millions of people around the world.

Our contributions in the health sector totalled approximately $780 million in 2008-2009.

As the Report points out, Canada played a leading role in the development of the Catalytic Initiative to Save a Million Lives.

Through this support, more than 20,000 health workers in 6 countries are better able to prevent and treat illness, and deliver health services to vulnerable groups of children and pregnant women.

We are on track to meeting our 2006 commitment of $450M program over 10 years to the Africa Health Systems Initiative.

This initiative bolsters African-led efforts to strengthen health systems and to make concrete progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals in sub-Saharan Africa.

Within Canada's Children and Youth focus, education is now one of three pathways we are pursuing.

In 2008-09, total funding to education, including secondary and college programs, was $400M.

The Report highlights one of our achievements in education , the distribution of over 90 million textbooks, student workbooks and teacher manuals in Mozambique.

The Report also recognizes the priority Canada gives to gender equality in all of its education programming, as well as our support for education in Afghanistan.

Between 2006-07 and 2008-09, our government invested approximately $209 million in the areas of water supply and sanitation worldwide.

These are only some examples of Canada's contribution to international development.

We welcome the opportunity the Muskoka Accountability Report gives us, as G8 countries, to take stock of our progress and pursue further steps to make our collective efforts more effective for those in developing countries.

Les Canadiens peuvent être fiers que le Canada respect ses engagements envers le G8.

And proud of the leadership, Prime Minister Harper and Canada has shown in making the international development work of the G8 more accountable.

Thank you.