We talk about security in very frank terms in every quarterly report. We made the point that security had deteriorated in recent months. That is a fact, and we were very clear about it. However, we also have to determine how Canada and the other countries can correct this situation.
We've talked very frankly about the nature of the insurgency--how the insurgency has changed, how very desperate it is to undermine civilian confidence, and the real impact it has had. It makes doing our work very difficult. But the sentence doesn't end there. We haven't stopped doing our work. We spend a great deal of time working with the Canadian Forces and with Afghan national security forces, thinking about how we respond. The very intent of the insurgency is to get us to down tools.
In each of our quarterly reports, while we talk about how difficult the security situation is, we also say that we've completed three schools and we're working on 22 more. We're continuing to plan the implementation of the Dahla Dam. We are working with the World Health Organization to immunize people in southern Afghanistan.
We're not for a minute saying that it's easy or that we don't face challenges. We're saying that we're determined to carry this out and to report frankly to you each quarter in terms of what we're doing.
What is more positive? I think an increasing U.S. presence in southern Afghanistan is a positive thing. It will deal with some of the challenges we face in being able to cover territory, and hold territory, over the longer term. But more important, I think we are beginning to see increased ability and increased capacity on the part of the Afghan National Army and parts of the Afghan government. It's not the entire government--it's still a work in progress--but we are seeing, in certain key ministries, a degree of connectedness that we hadn't seen before.
I'll offer a very short example. When Minister Oda was in Afghanistan in January, I was with her. We talked about the Dahla Dam with Kai Eide and also with the minister responsible for agriculture and irrigation. We talked about the irrigation that the Dahla Dam would provide and the link between that and the development of agriculture in southern Afghanistan. The Arghandab district was the breadbasket of southern Afghanistan. The irrigation systems fell apart. Agriculture itself fell apart. We're beginning to change that. That's now a $20 million industry just outside of Kandahar. That will grow if we stay focused and we are determined in our response.