Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It's a great privilege to have the opportunity to be here and to share the experience of the Aga Khan Development Network in the area of the private sector's role in achieving international development objectives. I want to b

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the issue of the diaspora as an asset for national development is a major issue. I think you're right that because of Canada's own demography we have a particular opportunity to think hard about that. One of the big opportunities we have is to

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you. There is a now burgeoning series of innovations in effectively aggregating a series of small-scale farmers in order for them to be able to upgrade the quality of their surplus produce. Most of these farmers will be, in the first instance, simply produci

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, Frigoken. It is the largest processed beans manufacturer from Kenya into Europe. The key has frankly been to aggregate tens of thousands of small-scale farmers and invest in their capabilities.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's exactly it.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's not quite a marketing board. What it is, effectively, is a company saying to the farmers, “We're going to give you some microloans in order for you to upgrade the capacity you have to improve the quality of production. If you don't have high-quality production, you can't exp

Foreign Affairs committee  —“and this way, you can plan for your future.” Then what Frigoken does is it invests in a processing plant centrally. It gathers all the produce, brings it centrally, and then processes it in a way that is in accordance with what their marketing specialists are telling them will

Foreign Affairs committee  I would just make the distinction, Mr. Chairman, that the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, which owns these companies, takes very little grant money from governments. We have very significant not-for-profit activities in health, education, rural development, and microfinan

Foreign Affairs committee  I think there are certain goals they are seeking to achieve and they can achieve them through these companies.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you. I do think that one of the impacts of intelligent and thoughtful private sector activity in the developing world is that it has ripple effects. I would like to say, though, that I don't think it is an automatic outcome. I think they have to be designe

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, the Nairobi Serena Hotel.

Foreign Affairs committee  The other, in Afghanistan, the Kabul Serena Hotel, was an early investment, partly also to try to spur a whole series of other private sector investors in the country at a fragile time. I think the other requirement is that you have to have long timeframes. I don't think you can

Foreign Affairs committee  Obviously, agribusiness is a big area. Again, I don't think it necessarily means large, corporatized farms. I think what we're talking about here is how you can help small-holder farmers aggregate their input in an intelligent way and get value out of it. We're seeing a lot of ex

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, let me begin by clarifying the premise of the question, which I appreciate. My understanding is that the committee is looking at the broad question of the role of the private sector in achieving international development objectives. I think Professor Brown and I h