VZCZCXRO6767
PP RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHQU RUEHVC
DE RUEHOT #0289 0562220
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 252220Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7399
INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0382
RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI 0322
RUEHLG/AMEMBASSY LILONGWE 0102
UNCLAS OTTAWA 000289
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE PASS WHA/CAN, AF, AND EAP
STATE PASS USAID
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID SOCI ECON CA ET MI VM
SUBJECT: CANADIAN GOVERNMENT SUPPORTS UNIVERSITY ASSISTANCE
TO MALAWI, ETHIOPIA, AND VIETNAM
1. Summary: Over the last week, the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) announced C$8 million under its
University Partnership in Cooperation and Development program
to support Canadian educational institutions to help three
developing countries increase their ability to meet local
human resource and development needs. The most recent grants
will partner two Nova Scotia universities with higher
education counterparts in Ethiopia on agriculture and in
Vietnam on business management training. The University of
Regina will help a Malawi university improve technical
training. End Summary.
Ethiopia
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2. Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC) will receive C$3
million to help Ethiopian farmers, and the local agriculture
and agri-food industries increase the quality and
availability of local agricultural products, as well as
commercialize agriculture in Ethiopia. "In Ethiopia, there
is as much as a 60 percent loss in vegetables and fruit after
harvest, said NSAC professor Tessema Astatkie, who will
direct the project. "If we can reduce the loss between
harvest and consumption by 50 percent, it will mean more food
on the table and more money for the farmers as well as
helping to reduce poverty."
3. NSAC will work with Ethiopia's Jimma University College
of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine to strengthen its
research, training, outreach, and other activities aimed at
improving Ethiopia's systems of handling, storing, processing
and marketing agricultural products. This includes creating
a network of 30 university, industry, government and
community groups with expertise and interest in these issues.
Researchers will develop low-cost techniques for storing,
drying and preserving food and will introduce such techniques
to farmers through community outreach programs.
Vietnam
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4. Saint Mary's University in Nova Scotia will receive C$2.8
million to assist Vietnam in making the transition from a
mainly agrarian economy to one that competes more broadly in
the global marketplace. Dr. David Wicks of St. Mary's School
of Business said that his school will work with the new
Center for Entrepreneurship at the National Economics
University in Hanoi to modernize its curriculum to help
graduates get jobs in Vietnam's growing business sector.
Malawi
------
5. The University of Regina in Saskatchewan will use its
C$2.4 million to work with the University of Malawi
Polytechnic to update its curriculum and skills training
courses to better reflect the needs of Malawi's job market,
and will prepare students for employment in the public and
private sectors. Dr. Rosetta Khalideen of the University of
Regina noted that "we learned that the Polytechnic graduates
were having difficulty integrating into the Malawi workforce
because they were lacking the technical skills needed by
employers. This project will help provide the reorientation
sought by our Malawi partners to change that."
Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada
WILKINS