I think those are absolutely the right questions, and the development report of 2007 that the minister made reference to should be providing clear examples of that.
Let me provide three or four examples of what we've been doing under Minister Verner's direction in this regard.
First of all, you'll find here a series of results, which were actually six months of effort within the agency, to ask, of all the money we've been spending on health care, what has actually led to real results, real lives saved, so that we can answer those kinds of legitimate questions? You'll find within it, for example, some of the work we've done with Stop TB, which has saved half a million lives, primarily children, at a cost of $200 per life saved. You'll find examples of how we worked with the Tanzanian researchers in government and with the IDRC to reduce child mortality by 40% through something called the Tanzania essential health interventions project. You'll also find examples of how Canada has played a leadership role in vitamin A and iodine deficiency, in work that is estimated by UNICEF to save millions of children from mental retardation.
The reason we were asked to produce this was...given the government and the minister's focus on accountability, we wanted to actually find out what had been working in the past that we could actually be leveraging and moving forward on.
A second example I would provide is this. The countries mentioned recently of Haiti and Afghanistan, which are difficult countries, are made impossible if we're not committed for the long term to try to make a difference. So there were two key decisions made in the last few months to make a strong $520 million, five-year commitment to Haiti to maintain the leadership so that we can actually be there for the long term and be judged in terms of results.
I would note that as a result of key decisions that we have been directed to move on by Minister Verner, likely this year we will have the highest country concentration that we've had in over a decade.
I think there's a lot more we have to do--you know my views on that--but my sense is that with the approach laid out here, we will be in a measure to be held accountable and will be able to provide you with ongoing answers to those questions.
There will never be a perfect answer. In the private sector one always looks at increasing profits, reducing costs, becoming more innovative. Those three issues always come back again and again. What's important is that you show progress against those goals. My strong commitment is to ensure that we do what we can in our agency to support the policy laid out by Minister Verner, to ensure that there's not only effectiveness in terms of strategic prioritization and program delivery, but clear communication of the results back to you and to the public.