Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to welcome all three of our guests, especially our guests who have come from Africa to share their experiences. I have to say your timing is perfect from three points of view, given the thrust of your presentation.
One is that you're quite right that this country is finally seized with climate change as a really serious issue, and I think you have helped to elucidate some of the relevance of your case for small-scale rural farming being at the heart of the strategy, from the African perspective.
Secondly, you may or may not know that this committee has been very much seized for two years now with the issue of directing our international aid particularly to poverty reduction, with that being very much the priority.
Thirdly, a number of members of Parliament have been in Africa over the last couple of weeks. I have to say, as one such member, that it was thrilling to visit both Kenya and Uganda to see the clearly overwhelming challenges that are faced, but also to see the very strong, impressive leadership coming from civil society, coming from local village councils and provincial governments and so on, around the very issues you're talking about.
I really also want, and I think we would be remiss not to do so, to recognize the leadership that has come from the food security network. Mr. Clark is a voice that is heard among others around the very fundamental issues you're talking about, again and again before this committee and directed to all members of Parliament of all political parties.
You have spoken particularly about understanding the connection between sustainable rural livelihoods and healthy ecosystems, but what we also saw, particularly when visiting, I would say, some of the projects in Kenya, was the very close connection between healthy rural agriculture and healthy bodies, in terms of adequate nutrition and of recognizing the double challenge faced by people struggling with HIV/AIDS. We were blown away by the numbers of people who are living positively with HIV/AIDS because nutrition was being addressed in a very serious way.
Also, I was extremely impressed in a number of cases in which young people were being brought into agricultural training opportunities that were turning their lives around. Some of the projects I saw in Uganda, as well as in Kenya, were directed at young people who in some cases were HIV/AIDS orphans and who were getting really good agricultural training for a lifetime; in some cases, in northern Uganda—unbelievably—children whose lives were being turned around, because they had been abducted as child soldiers and forced in some cases into child sex slavery and were now being reintegrated and rehabilitated, with agriculture as the solid base to help them turn their own lives around and to also rebuild their communities.
So I want to commend you on the presentation you've made, but also on the display of leadership. It won't surprise you to know that all members of Parliament don't agree on all matters, but I think it is not so much for you to say as it is for us to reaffirm our commitment to meet our millennium development goal obligations and our ODA obligations to climb out of the basement, where we are now, at 0.32% ODA, to at least meet the minimum of 0.7%.
The committee has also just come back from Europe, where we met with five European countries, all of whom are way ahead of where Canada is in this. I do not think you should take either/or for an answer; it has to be both/and. It has to be our meeting of those basic obligations for ODA, but also working at respect and knowledge, working in partnership with local leadership.
I have a very specific question that I want to ask.