Thank you very much.
Let me just take the example of some of these countries where there's an overlap that's a Canadian focus area and where there's an interest in the extractive sector. I think Canadian CIDA needs to have the capacity and ability to convene and speak to private sector actors and be comfortable doing so. There are some cultural issues for the development community. Sometimes we don't speak the same language. But I do think it's very possible for CIDA to take on a convening role and do some joint planning with some of these other development actors. The private sector are development actors.
I know that CIDA does country-based planning, so every two, three, or four years there's this moment of what I'd call “programmatic agnosticism”--we don't know what we're going to do with the money for the next three to four years. We need to be bringing in these other players, whether they're diaspora groups, mining companies, or agri-business companies. There could be other multinationals, local or others, as part of CIDA's process of thinking through what they're going to do with their resources for the next several years.
So there's a convening function. There's perhaps a joint planning function, an identification of opportunities to work here. That doesn't mean you have to do everything in partnership. Partnership is an approach. It's a way to solve a problem and to bring in other assets, and to solve problems with synergies. I do think that it's currently an underutilized instrument. I think CIDA can build this capacity and needs to.