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From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
The former Secretary of State and Minister of Immigration and Citizenship in Canada, Gerry Weiner, has advocated a pact between Nigeria and Canada towards achieving food security and economic sustainability
Gerry who had clocked 90 years, said he was willing to facilitate a partnership between Nigeria and Canadian companies to conduct thorough research on the agro-food sector in Nigeria and other African countries to understand the specific challenges and opportunities and also identify potential partners, both in Canada and Africa, such as universities, research institutions, NGOs and government bodies, that are already working in this space.”
He said such a pact between Nigeria and Canada in the agro-food sector would rob off other African nations.
Gerry, now the Executive Director, Global Relations Partnership and Customers Satisfaction, APS, Canada Startup Visa, shared this roadmap during a virtual engagement with members of the Journalists International Forum For Migration (JIFORM) ahead of the body’s 4th Global Migration summit slated for Toronto between October 2 and 14 focusing on climate change, human mobility and sustainable investment.
He urged other advanced nations to copy the friendly migration model of Canada, noting that the challenges confronting human mobility in recent times could be traced to the imbalance of the global economic progression between the global north and south that had widened the poverty net between rich and poor countries.
With several years of experience on the continent, he observed that Africa has enormous potential that could be fine-tuned to enhance the standard of living of her people.
“Canada is one of the countries with a food surplus while half of Africa goes to sleep hungry every night. We have 10 percent of the world’s freshwater supply but half of Africans may be drinking contaminated water. What a world without conscience,” he lamented.
X-raying some tough economic decisions taken by President Bola Tinubu geared towards economic recovery; he said there was a need for Canada and other top economies to back Nigeria with a structured positive economic blueprint that would impact on Africa.
According to him, if a roadmap on agro-food production and technologies from Canada could be adopted by the Nigerian government, the project could be funded by international development organizations, and impact investors with grants to support the initiatives that would encourage Canadian investors to explore opportunities in agro-food start-ups in Africa to foster self-sufficiency by empowering local communities to independently operate and maintain the technologies, especially in Nigeria.
These, he said, would lead to collaborations with Canadian companies willing to share their technologies and expertise, and facilitate knowledge exchange and technology transfer by organizing workshops, webinars and training sessions to ensure that the technologies being transferred are adapted to suit the local agricultural and environmental conditions in Nigeria and in many African nations.
JIFORM is an international media network founded in 2019 with over 300 journalists and other volunteers focusing on migration across the continents. It has been facilitating the annual global migration summit.
The 4th JIFORM summit to be hosted by Abedorc Productions Inc, Toronto is slated for Belmont Event Space at Etobicoke, Toronto Canada with arrays of speakers from other countries to be led by Gerry.
