2007-02-04
(2007-03) News Release
Quebec City — The Honourable Josée Verner, Minister of International Cooperation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages, announced that the Société de coopération pour le développement international (SOCODEVI) will receive $14.5 million over the next five years for activities aimed at improving living conditions for people in the Americas, in Africa and in Asia.
The funding was announced today at a dinner conference organized by SOCODEVI to mark the official launch of International Development Week. This year's theme is: "Equality Between Women and Men. To have a voice. To have a choice."
“SOCODEVI's development model is delivering concrete results,” said Minister Verner. “Showing people a better way to use their resources in common allows them to do together what they are not able to do individually. When I toured Mali, I had the opportunity to visit a credit union and to speak with women who had managed to escape poverty thanks to small loans. The cooperative movement is an essential tool to boost development and the full participation of women.”
SOCODEVI is a non-profit organization whose members help people create jobs and business opportunities at the local, regional and international levels. Equality between women and men is an integral part of all SOCODEVI’s activities. The 2007-2012 Cooperative Program has four components :
support for local agricultural, health, forestry and financial cooperatives in Bolivia,, Guatemala, Honduras, Cameroon, Mali, Senegal and Vietnam;
support for local insurance companies (Nicaragua and Salvador) and for the cocoa and coffee sector (Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Togo);
support for an outreach and public engagement program for Canadians; and,
research and development to optimize SOCODEVI’s model for international development, with a focus on its training tools and the sharing of information.
“We believe this collaboration with our Southern partners, which is aimed at enhancing existing cooperative organizations and creating new ones, will allow thousands of families to improve their living conditions considerably” said Alain Leclerc, President of SOCODEVI. “This agreement will allow us to pursue this successful program in more than 10 developing countries.”
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Information:
Nicole Lascelle
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister for International Cooperation
Telephone: (819) 953-6238
Media Relations Office
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Telephone: (819) 953-6534
E-mail: info@acdi-cida.gc.ca
