It is predominantly done by Afghans, but of course some of the heavy equipment that is required for the excavation, just as it would be in Crowfoot, requires the assistance of the military. It requires the assistance of construction crews, designers, and engineers.
It ties into the question of who are these four million to five million Afghans who have returned. Well, they're professionals. They are engineers, doctors, and academics.
The foreign affairs minister for Afghanistan lived in Germany for 10 to 15 years during the Taliban regime and now has returned and entered public life. That can be said of other members of President Karzai's government. These refugees are ordinary men, women, and children who fled an oppressive, horrifically violent government to try to raise their families and pursue their career ambitions elsewhere. Many of them now are anxious to return, and have returned, yet more continue to flood into the country.
Let me just give you some other statistics in line with the 6,000 kilometres of road: 4,000 new houses and shelters have been constructed; 63,000 soldiers have been disarmed, and many of those same soldiers and combatants are now being recruited into the service of their country, either through policing or the professional Afghan army; almost 5.5 million children, one-third of whom are girls, are now getting an education in school; 4,000 medical facilities have been opened; and 23,000 community development projects have been approved, of which 10,000 have been completed.
Many other institutions of government in terms of departments are taking shape and expanding their reach. Women occupy 25% of the seats of the parliament of Afghanistan. Per capita income has doubled. The Afghan economy itself has tripled in the past few years. These numbers don't really speak to the human impact that this is having in the country: the confidence, the hope, the feeling that there is a future there. That's exactly the type of tangible proof of progress that we need to underscore but never become complacent about. All of it is still fragile and very much dependent on our ability to keep this progress going to preserve, to have, and to hold what is currently there, and to build upon that base.