Robert Fox said in times like these Canada usually donates four per cent of the global sum — in this case $40 million. Canada has already donated $22 million. Oxfam is one five Canadian-based NGOs that are calling for more.
International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda is in Kenya, touring the famine region, and is expected to make a funding announcement Friday at noon ET.
Fox said Oxfam guarantees the money will get to the 11 million who are desperately in need of food and water in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.
"We have capacity on the ground, we have our staff and partners there … we have tried and true methods of working in difficult circumstances," he said. "We can assure the Canadian government that public funding received by members of the humanitarian coalition that is channelled through the world food program will get to the people who need it."
The UN is ramping up its aid efforts for the drought-hit regions of East Africa after it declared a famine in two regions of southern Somalia on Wednesday.
Famine is officially defined as when two adults or four children per 10,000 people die of hunger each day and a third of children are acutely malnourished. Earlier this week, the UN declared an official famine.
The World Food Program said it will soon begin providing food for 175,000 people in the Gedo region of southern Somalia.
WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella told reporters in Geneva that the UN food agency also aims to provide aid to 40,000 people in the Afgoye region and will start airlifts to the capital Mogadishu in the coming days.
The global body says tens of thousands of people have already starved to death in Somalia and thousands are streaming across the borders to Ethiopia and Kenya daily.
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