Canada To Support
Infant Mortality Initiatives
The
Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Dennis Kingsley, has
expressed his country's willingness to assist Nigeria to reduce
her existing infant mortality rate.
The UNDP 2005-2010 report puts Nigeria's infant mortality
estimate at 109.5 percent deaths per 1,000 live
births while less than five years was put at 187.5
percent deaths per 1,000 live births.
Kingsley who said that issues of health and trade would form
part of Canada's dialogue with Nigeria this year, said that
there would be no impositions, saying that his country's
interventions would be based on request.
In the words of Mr. Kingsley: ’’Health is an issue, we want
to try and work as much as possible to reduce the infant
mortality rate which is very high for Nigeria.’’
Trade relations to be boosted
Speaking in an interview in Abuja, the envoy also cited trade as
one of the areas of collaboration the Canadian government would
want to increase and strengthen with Nigeria.
’’There is a lot of trade that we can enter into. We want a
lot of capacity that we can bring here in Nigeria…We can help in
the area of technology and Nigeria has the brain power and a lot
of human resources that can be useful in Canada,’’ he
stressed.
Diplomatic relations too
He said that at the diplomatic level, the two countries
would be working together on issues of immigration and visa to
ensure that they become ‘as easy as possible’.
The envoy who refuted allegations that Canadian visa policy was
stringent, said there were procedures which majority of
applicants failed to obey.
’’People do not fully understand how to complete the forms or
work with us, there are mechanisms which show what are required
and these are the areas we are working on…The visa policy is
reciprocal, we have to have visa before we can come to Nigeria
as well but we found out that once in a while it is difficult to
get a visa to come to Nigeria too.’’
The envoy congratulated Nigeria on her election as a
non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and said Canada
was also hopeful of getting elected in 2011.
He expressed optimism that the two countries would work together
on some issues at the UN.
NAN/Yinka
