Merci, madame la ministre.
Thank you, Mr. Goldring.
Education, clearly, is one of the major challenges in Haiti. I think it's probably a unique situation in the world that 85% of the educational system is in the private sector, with very unequal degrees of quality, as you can imagine. One of the major issues in Haiti is for the state to regain control of the quality of the education and to play its normative, regulatory role.
President Préval, when he was first elected in February, immediately engaged in discussions with the World Bank in order for them to take some leadership with the international community to define a project. He specifically has in mind to have every child going to primary school and for every child to be fed at least one meal a day so that they can learn adequately. Certainly, this is something that we very much value and would support.
Until the actual plan of investment in the educational sector is performed, at this point we have been continuing local development projects in the schooling system, and we are in a number of regions.
When you mentioned the notion of a 30% participation in the legislative...I think it's a reflection of two things. One, in that country the president is master of everything, so once he's elected there is not as much interest in members of Parliament, with all the respect I have for the colleagues around the table. This is one reason.
The other reason is we have to increase the notion of civic education. CIDA, in the lead-up to the elections, did fund a number of local NGOs to do exactly that, to engage citizens about their right. It is a political right. This is a human rights issue for them to go and vote, and to sensitize them.... We used the journalists, as the minister has just said, to try to raise this issue, but you have a population that is not very literate, that cannot afford a newspaper. Certainly we've worked a lot through the radio, because they do listen to the radio.
So there's the aspect of having an educational plan that is normative, in which there will be the ownership by the government. We are going to support that plan when it is fully developed, and I think that should be done in about a year's time.
The second portion is the whole notion of civic education. This is certainly something that, in the dialogue we can have with the international community and the government, we can ensure that it is part and parcel of the educational system.
Thank you.