Today, the Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, held a roundtable with private sector leaders and development partners focussing on how the Canadian private sector's engagement in international development can help make Canada's international assistance more effective.

"The discussions today centered around knowledge sharing", said Minister Oda. "We exchanged views on how Canadian businesses, in tangible ways, can engage with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to reduce poverty more effectively around the world."

The discussions focused on the private sector's ability to increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and timeliness of CIDA's development activities in developing countries. Participants discussed examples of successful, current private sector engagement initiatives between industry and non-governmental organizations and identified new, innovative opportunities to engage and help CIDA and development partners to work together.

Moving forward, CIDA will use today's discussions to inform new ways of bringing the expertise and innovative thinking of the private sector into new approaches to meet the world's development challenges.