Thank you for your question.
Thank you for the question, because it enables me to expand further on actually how CIDA makes its decisions and distributes and uses its resources to support different organizations.
We have to remember, first of all, that we are working with the Afghan government and with 60 international partners. In order to do that, there are also many levels on which we're doing our work in Afghanistan.
When you're working with multilateral organizations at the request of the Afghan government—we have some organizations who have been asked to take on special projects, etc., or to take over an area—we make our contribution to that organization. Because these organizations are internationally very experienced organizations, such as the World Food Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the International Red Cross—we work with them—they also understand the requirements of all their contributors to report back on the utilization of their funds and the contributions, so they're always willing to work with us on reporting back. I could not have given you the facts and the numbers that I reported in my presentation if there wasn't that cooperation on reporting back to the donor countries and to the donor organizations.
When we're working on other projects with other organizations, whether they're Canadian NGOs or international NGOs, we always ensure that the reporting back and the accountability is to our satisfaction. We always make sure we meet at least the minimum requirements of the Government of Canada. But I'll tell you, in the short time that I have been the minister, in my conversations and meetings with other countries and representatives of other countries, they have established very high requirements on accountability and reporting as well. Just as recently as this morning, I met with the French ambassador, who told me that France was reviewing its accountability requirements, etc., on the work they're doing in Afghanistan.
Consequently, as I say, we have monitoring and reporting requirements. We've also just recently completed discussions with the Government of Afghanistan--that was completed just before my visit--on strengthening their requirements and coming up with our agreements when we're working with them, as far as the requirements of how they will report on the utilization of the funds are concerned.