The global food crisis, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, has prompted Canada to increase its annual foreign aid budget of over 6 billion dollars to help the most affected countries in Africa and the Middle East, according to Hardeep Sajan, the Canadian Minister of International Development, today Thursday.

Sajan said, according to Reuters agency, that the Ukrainian crisis has harmed supply chains, which has reflected on food security in many regions and affected the most vulnerable groups.

Sajan explained to the agency, during his regional tour that started in Jordan, then Egypt and Lebanon, that citizens are suffering from hunger due to rising food prices, adding that Canada is boosting its aid to the World Food Program, whose annual requirements have reached the highest ever at 22.2 billion dollars, without canceling other development programs.

He also confirmed that his country supported Middle Eastern countries with significant aid when it comes to food, citing Lebanon, which heavily depends on Ukrainian wheat and is facing a bread shortage, Egypt as the largest wheat importer in the world, and Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria torn by conflicts, as he described.

Canada is also studying how to help improve resilience in African countries, specifically pointing to the lack of food storage on the continent, according to Sajan.

The Canadian International Development platform revealed that there was a 27% increase in foreign aid last year to about 6.6 billion dollars.

The agreement reached last month through mediation with Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey, to release grain exports from Black Sea ports, was described as a "positive step".

The United Nations stated that the global food crisis caused by conflict, climate shocks, and the Corona pandemic is increasing due to the successive effects of the war in Ukraine, which led to rising prices for food, fuel, and fertilizers.