The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund is committed to addressing long-term development needs and to working in partnership with local communities and organizations. Could you highlight one of your exciting new programs? We realize it’s difficult to choose!

One new program we are excited about is a youth microfinance initiative with NEDC (Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation) in B.C. The Indigenous Youth Business Strategy program provides access to a loan fund to help Indigenous youth start a business, experience success, create job(s) and develop wealth. PWRDF funds will support the loan fund as well as programming to teach and support youth in marketing, cash flow, logistics, personal finance and budgeting skills.

Sharing stories is a great way of engaging Canadians on a human level. Could you illustrate how the PWRDF story library has been able to achieve this?

We have an incredible network of volunteers across the country sharing out our stories to their communities and parishes. They share monthly Voices of Hope stories in the weekly church service bulletins and speak at churches and many other community events – at schools, Lions and Rotary Clubs, with city officials, even at birthday parties and weddings! They share videos we have produced showcasing the work of our partners. We are active on social media and our volunteers are quick to share these stories to their networks, often adding context to make the stories more impactful for their respective audiences. We also produce devotionals for Lent and Advent in which we relate Biblical imperatives for justice and compassion to our work. People subscribe to receive these in their inbox every day. This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the Springhill, N.S. mining disaster in 1958 which was the beginning of PWRDF, and we are producing an e-book of 60 stories for 60 years. This will be on our website and the individual stories shared on social media. We will also be releasing a new video in honour of this milestone that features the inspiring work of two of our volunteers, a mother-daughter pair in Camrose, Alberta.

We’re looking forward to your panel at the CCIC 2018 Annual Conference focused on the perspectives of Indigenous communities in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. Without giving too much away, what can we expect from this panel?

There is so much wisdom, impact, collaboration taking place within and across Indigenous communities. Now is the time to share this out, not just for the benefit of working more to strengthen the achievement of human rights in Canada but to share learnings with the broader global development community. Together, we can make progress on the SDGs. Results are happening.

 

The Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) works towards ending world hunger by providing food in times of crisis, helping people grow food to feed themselves, and providing nutritional support to malnourished people. Ending world hunger is a lofty goal, does CFGB has a success story that could share about their quest for that goal?

Any time a family that is facing hunger is able to access food due to a well functioning social protection system or timely relief provision that is a success story. I remember talking with a widow in Niger as we watched her two young boys fight in the yard. She noted that a few months earlier they would not have had the energy to fight due to food shortages from the severe drought that had devastated her crops. The monthly food we were providing was providing the food the family needed, and meant she did not have to go into debt or sell her land to survive. This is success. Of course, we are also working to strengthen the resilience of communities to drought. Seeing maize growing in the fields of smallholder farmers in Kenya that have adopted conservation agriculture practices when the maize in neighbouring fields is failing due to drought is a success. We have been investing significant resources in promoting conservation agriculture to improve soil health and resilience to drought, and are seeing more uptake. When all the neighbours adopt these practices then we will have been truly successful.

CFGB was instrumental in ending the tying of food aid in Canada. What prompted CFGB to lead this policy initiative and why was it successful?

The origins of Canadian Foodgrains Bank involve Canadian farmers sharing grain they had produced. Our very identity involved the shipping of Canadian grain. In many cases this made good sense. However, we could not always provide as timely assistance as we wanted. We sometimes had to swap Canadian grain for other needed or preferred food commodities. There were many cases where is was more costly to ship Canadian food rather than buying it locally or regionally. And we were concerned about disrupting local markets. Calling for any change meant deep conversations with the Canadian farming community and their farm organizations to explain why the untying of Canadian food aid made good sense, and would not be harmful to Canadian farmers. Our supporting farmers, who have a heart for rural families in other parts of the world, proved critical to persuading their farm organizations and neighbours to accept this policy change. Once key farm organizations agreed not to oppose a change, then the government was able to move forward with the policy change.

What might people be surprised to know about CFGB?

Not everyone knows that Canadian Foodgrains Bank is an association of 15 Canadian churches and church agencies. We are a church-based agency with deep roots in the Canadian farming and agriculture community. All our international programming is delivered through our member churches and their partners. While we are best known for our food assistance programming, we are also one of Canada’s largest funders of agriculture and nutrition programming.

CFGB has been a member of CCIC for many years and have always been strong advocates of CCIC. What value does CCIC bring to your work and why is it important for you to be involved?

It is vital that Canadian NGOs have an association that can serve as a joint voice for our sector with government and media, and that can work with the sector to develop common positions or messages. We also need an association that can help convene critical conversations. It is important that we don’t work in isolation, that we work as part of a bigger movement for change. We also value the information that comes from CCIC.

 

My research has always been based on extensive empirical data collection and analysis on contemporary issues in global development. As such, my research always made contributions to theory, practice, policy and advocacy. I see my roles in teaching, research and professional service as very complementary and mutually inclusive.

CASID is hosting its Annual Conference May 31-June 1st at the University of Regina. Your theme this year is “Exploring and Unpacking Diversity in Development”. Could you give us a sneak peek into what we should expect from the Conference this year?

This is an important opportunity for CASID to reach outside Ottawa to different regions in Canada where international development communities thrive. More than 60 students, practitioners and faculty members will be presenting their work on diverse topics in international development. Our keynote speaker is Dr. A. Atia Apusigah, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana

Every year CASID challenges students and members to host and organize regional events related to development. Would you be able to highlight a couple of the most creative, innovative or exciting regional events that your members or students have organized?

In 2018, CASID will host 10 regional events in four provinces (Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and BC) across Canada. The purpose of these events is to bring academics, students, development practitioners and the general public together to discuss current development issues. This year’s roster of events include a Public Policy Summer School organized by Dalhousie University and University of Ottawa that will bring together 15 – 20 students to work with civil society organizations and public servants in Ottawa on research to policy communication issues; a Child Rights conference organized by the Student Association of International Development (SAID) at the University of Waterloo; a conference on gender and development at the University of British Columbia; and a training session organized by the University of Montreal and REDTAC that will enable teachers at CEGEPS and high schools to use videos on migration, land grabbing, and gender and development in the classroom.

CASID and CCIC have recently celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the three-year IDRC-funded Next Generation Leadership program (2017—2019). Through this program, CCIC and CASID have begun to identify and test new ways of breaking down silos between development practitioners, researchers, academics, students and policy developers. Could you indicate why CASID decided to partner with CCIC on this project? 

CASID is sometimes thought to be an “academic” institution, but 25% of our members are from the “practitioner” community. Another 25% are students, many if not most with an interest in becoming practitioners. This means that they and the other 50% of our membership in the academic community need to have their feet firmly planted in the realities of international development and the problems it seeks to address. The Next Generation program with CCIC is an important part of making that happen.

Are there any other CASID initiatives that CCIC members and supporters should know about?

CASID also offers Certificate Seminars on a range of topics including humanitarian aid, women’s empowerment, and implementing the SDGs. To date, more than 250 participants have completed the Certificate seminars. Participants include students, practitioners, and those in the job market and upgrading their skills and competencies. The most recent certificates (5 in total) have been held at University of Ottawa between 2017 and 2018. Information about the Certificates are circulated on the CASID listserv. Find out more here.

The Career Paths and Employment Outcomes Study was a collaborative initiative between CASID and the Canadian Consortium for Colleges and University Programs in International Development Studies (CCCUPIDS) that involved administering a survey to 1901 graduate of IDS programs in Canada. The study provides information about the kinds of employment IDS graduates find and what skills they consider valuable for obtaining work. The findings from this study can be found here.
The Canadian Journal of Development Studies (CJDS) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, bilingual forum for critical research and reflection on the complex problems of international development theory, policy and practice. It is published quarterly by CASID in partnership with Routledge. It is the only Canadian scholarly journal devoted exclusively to the study of international development. CJDS is currently one of the most highly-ranked social science journals in Canada, and globally one of the most highly-ranked journals in development studies.