Thank you very much, sir.
You mentioned the very important role that Canada played in the past, but I must confirm that Canada continues to participate in events in that part of the world.
CIDA has a long and rich history in the Great Lakes region. This includes not only the four countries that we're talking about, but also Tanzania, which is part of this area of the world. As you mentioned, the conflict is much larger than these three countries. It encompasses that whole region--Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania, and the whole region.
Minister Oda did announce, three or four weeks ago now, that CIDA would be concentrating its aid in a number of key development partners. But what's been lost in that message is that we are not going to be abandoning these countries for bilateral assistance. While they're not going to be a country of concentration, we will continue to have bilateral programs in that part of the world well into future, in much the same themes that were mentioned by Mr. Sunquist. For example, this year, on the bilateral side, we're scheduled to spend up to $14 million in the Congo and $7 million in Rwanda, and we look to continue into the future at more or less these exact same levels.
The other message that has been lost is that it's not just the bilateral channel that we'll continue, but it will be the multilateral and the partnership branch. So we will continue programming with our Canadian civil society groups that are active in that region. We will continue to funnel assistance through the multilateral organizations, whether it be the United Nations or the international financial institutions that are active in that part of the world. So the totality of Canadian involvement in that region will continue to be quite significant for the foreseeable future.