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 
-------- 
 
¶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 
------- 
 
¶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