Canada needs to ensure it not only responds to events across Africa, but has the foresight to implement a policy which will contribute significantly towards the African renaissance. The continent is appearing more prominently on radar screens in the past few years than ever before.
The human security emphasis has certainly addressed issues which are of greatest concern in Africa, including small arms, child soldiers, and landmines. CIDA has also placed Africa at the heart of its programming, with new initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS, illiteracy, poverty and encouraging good governance generally. In addition, CIDA was the principal sponsor of the four-city "Africa Direct" initiative in the spring of 2000. While these efforts represent steps towards building a new partnership with Africa, there is much more to be done. We need to identify ways in which to become more comprehensively engaged on the continent in conflict resolution and encouraging more active involvement by our private sector and civil society in addressing challenges such as the scourge of HIV/AIDS.
HIV/AIDS has been described as the most catastrophic health crisis of our time. Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter with an estimated 25.3 million sufferers. Approximately 70% of all people in the world infected with HIV live in Africa; nine out of ten children in the world infected with the disease live on the continent. African leaders are finally acknowledging that AIDS constitutes a national crisis in many countries, threatening the entire continent's economic and social development.
The Canadian government has responded by providing an additional $50 million to support projects to fight AIDS in each major region of Africa. A major focus of our programming is prevention and education, with the aim of curbing the disease where the spread is most rampant.
AIDS lies at the intersection of some of the most important issues of our day, including poverty, globalization and the lack of health care infrastructure. These issues must be dealt with aggressively in partnership with African governments. Part of poverty elimination is paying more attention to the educational needs of African children, who suffer from a lack of skilled teachers, functional classrooms and Internet connectivity. Three- year- old computers, which have been branded obsolete, languish in the basements of firms across this country, while university students across Africa cannot access even communal computers. In what is considered the most developed country in Africa, in the most highly -rated university on the continent, 400 students share one computer. This is at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where students cannot find computers to print their academic papers or use the Internet for research purposes. If this is the situation there, we can guess at the situation in rural areas in much less developed countries.
As a nation, we used to be far more proactive in promoting education in Africa, bringing numerous African students to study at Canadian universities, and sending teachers to contribute their skills in African classrooms. For example, Robert Fowler, our former Ambassador to the United Nations, spent a number of years teaching in Rwanda, as did many others of his generation. We have seemingly lost our will to assist in a major way in the educational sector. I think it is high time that we find new ways to collaborate in making education more accessible to Africans in the information age. One initiative we are pursuing is the encouragement of more Canadian private sector firms to take an interest in the sector. The first tangible steps in this direction were the Learning and Technology Mission to South Africa in March 2000, which I led. As a partial result of our encouragement, the private sector has formed a new association called Knowledge Resources Canada to bring together Canadian firms involved in the provision of "learnware," initially targeting South Africa and later all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
As a government, we would like to support civil society actors who seek to enhance knowledge mobility and bridge the digital divide effectively. In an age of Internet connectivity and computer facilitated learning, not all of our children are being given the chance to compete on an even playing field. Part of our challenge is to ensure that the benefits and opportunities of the new electronic age are not confined to an educated few. Closing the knowledge gap becomes critical to development. The economy of any country will only be as strong as the skills of its workforce.
Canada is a leading provider of information technology. There have been notable successes by Canadian firms, such as SR Telecom, Harris and Nortel to introduce the latest in communications technology to Sub-Saharan Africa, but we have been under-represented in making available our expertise in Internet-based technology, and software applications, which the region so desperately needs if it is to take its place in the world of the 21st century. A major focus of our efforts in the coming months will be the encouragement of more Canadian high-technology firms to consider Africa in formulating their world market development strategies.
The absence of meaningful human security in many African countries has been the most daunting challenge confronting stability in the region. Canada is seeking new partnerships with African states to confront these challenges. There is a common understanding that Canadians share a common destiny with Africans: if humanity is indivisible, then we all need to work together to promote development, trade, and conflict resolution.
Many African states are currently mired in conflict, with the arc of crisis stretching from Angola to the Upper Nile basin. The continent currently accounts for half of the world's war-related deaths and struggles to assist eight million refugees. A dozen major wars and twice as many rumbling insurrections continue to cause devastation throughout the continent. While it is true that there will be no peace without development, there will also be no development without peace. Canada must engage in conflict resolution on the continent more actively in the coming years.
This past summer, I visited the Great Lakes region of Central Africa in order to assess the prospects for peace and to reiterate Canada's support for the Lusaka Peace Agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the peace process in Burundi. The conflict in the DRC threatens to destabilize the entire region. At least nine rebel groups are using the DRC as a springboard to launch attacks into neighboring countries and six neighboring states have troops positioned within DRC territory. The country has become a virtual playground for self-enrichment with its rich deposits of diamonds, gold and other natural resources.
In support of the Lusaka Peace Agreement, Canada has committed $2.5 million to support the Joint Military Commission, the national dialogue and the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers. A further $1.2 million has been provided for the Arusha Peace Process in Burundi under the facilitation of Nelson Mandela. We are all well aware of the urgent need to prevent conflict diamonds from filling the coffers of rebel groups operating not only in the DRC but in other conflict zones on the continent. Canadian officials have actively participated in recent multilateral meetings concerning the trade in conflict diamonds, and are working to devise an effective certification scheme for such diamonds .
One of the most disturbing issues in a number of war- ravaged African states is the plight of war-affected children, in particular the emerging trend of targeting children both as fighters and victims. The issue of these children is one of the priorities of Canada and we have played a leadership role on it. Last April, we co-hosted with the Government of Ghana a regional conference on war-affected children. In September, Canada hosted the International Conference on War-Affected Children in Winnipeg. One result was an agreement, with Uganda, Sudan and Egypt issuing a joint statement undertaking to actively support initiatives to return and rehabilitate children from northern Uganda abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army. This was a concrete demonstration of Canada's political will to assist with the process of release, protection, reintegration and rehabilitation of children affected by armed conflict. Without the support and determination of African partner governments, these efforts would be futile.
Canada has also worked collaboratively with African nations to push the international community for deeper, broader and faster debt relief. Major action is required to alleviate unmanageable debt burdens where many African countries find themselves paying more than 60% of revenues generated from exports to donors and commercial lenders. Canada has forgiven $39 million of debt for Senegal, Benin, Mali, Mozambique and Burkina Faso. Recently Finance Minister Paul Martin publicly pressed creditor countries to write off additional debt as a part of a multilateral drive towards debt reduction.
A key element in our foreign policy towards Africa is trade promotion, elements of which, I have already mentioned. Increased trade will create economic growth and jobs in both Canada and Africa. Our investment on the continent tripled over the last decade, and two-way trade now exceeds $2 billion. Over the last few years it has been countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, not Asia or Latin America, that have led the world in percentage economic growth. Africa is now considered one of the last regions with unexploited high economic and social growth potential.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has taken steps to assist Canadian companies looking to engage in these potentially lucrative markets. Africa Direct, brought African business people and government representatives to Canada in order to forge links with the private sector in this country. The program included individual exchanges, lectures, roundtables, visits to companies, and perhaps most importantly presented opportunities to network. The success of the event has paved the way for much closer engagement with partners in Africa on the trade front.
In conclusion, our vision is one of communities in Africa which see peace more than they do war, where knowledge mobility makes education the norm - not a luxury, and people understand how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Competitive economies capable of spurring economic growth and governments which listen to their people - that is our vision. Let us not forget that Canada has its own challenges in meeting the needs of our fellow citizens, and we can learn much from African nations and their experiences. This is what makes our efforts to promote human, social and economic development a collaborative effort. It is up to all of us to make sure that Africa thrives.