Thank you, Mr. Khan. You've displayed quite an intimate knowledge of the country and what has to happen and what's currently under way.
Picking up on your last point, the highway itself is one of the largest infrastructure investments that country has ever had. Canada is front and centre in supporting the completion of that road. It will not only increase the ability of movement of traffic for merchandise, goods going to and from the capital city to the rest of the country, but it will also once again demonstrate the need for Afghan-led projects to unfold. That is to say, the Afghan people themselves, their government, the employees who are involved in the construction of this road are the essential component. We want to continue to marry up the CIDA projects with those identified priorities as stated by the Afghan government.
You mentioned some of the CIDA initiatives. One that very much comes to mind where there is great emphasis put is the still very real inequities in the country between men and women and the need for women to be more active in the community, more able to access services and improve their own futures. A specific $14-million contribution to a project that has been implemented and undertaken by the Afghan Ministry of Education has established 4,000 community-based schools around the country and after-school learning programs to train as many as 9,000 new female school teachers.
I would suggest that there is very little that is more powerful in empowering young women in that country than seeing their own women take leadership roles and become role models, teachers, officials in the government itself, police officers, or army officers. They need to see that the country is very much embracing equality. So there is an intrinsic value in targeting those types of initiatives.
Micro finance is another one that I could go on about at some length, to empower women entrepreneurs in business. Vocational training is another area where we're able to help provide the assistance and the necessary tools, the actual equipment and technology, to elevate them to a much higher level.