CIDA is a very strong proponent, as I am as an RDG, of the point that doing extremely effective development derives from the notion of country ownership. You've mentioned the plan. In the case of Ethiopia, what we call a growth and transformation plan from 2010 through 2015 is basically their poverty reduction strategy paper, which is, in the lingo of the development world, the key paper that each country pulls together to rally support from other countries and from donors.
In this case, through that plan, they take a very serious look at how they've done so far over the last series of plans—there have been several in the case of Ethiopia—and then we take a look at how we mesh best with our own country strategy to dovetail with that planning. The notion is that whatever they are saying are their priorities, we want to look for a piece of it that is an appropriate fit for Canadian talents and skills. But most importantly, it is driven by that recipient country.
In this case, what has come up with this new plan is very interesting. They've had a realization and made a recommendation that if they want to have sustainable growth, they're going to have to see a bit more strength and shift towards bolstering the private sector. Over the past few years there has been very strong growth in Ethiopia, but it's largely been public sector driven. This has been a really interesting development in this new five-year plan.
There are many donors in discussion with the government now. That's the second part of the answer. Through discussion with the government, we have developed options on where we can fit in as a piece of the puzzle.
We've been extremely strong on food security, both on the notion of areas for growth in food-secure opportunities for growing more small business, for example, and in food insecure areas, like some of the programs that we discussed today, such as the productive safety net. Food security has been a strong front for us.
Children and youth is another theme for CIDA, and we have been very strong on the notion of the procurement of health commodities. That has taken us a certain distance, but I'll bring it back to one of the key issues we raised earlier about controls. The Government of Ethiopia is moving its health commodities purchasing towards more of a direct budget support request. Canada, since 2005, has not given any direct funding to the Government of Ethiopia; therefore, on that front of health commodities, we would not propose to continue with that support because of the mechanism they're going to use for the future.
We've got a little bit of room right now to look at possible new directions in this five-year plan. That work is underway.