Absolutely, yes, Canada has a particular role this year. We are asking all our main donors to increase contributions by about 50%, but I would say Canada would have a particular responsibility. It's great that some G-8 countries, such as Japan and the U.S., have already moved ahead. The Europeans currently find themselves in a big crisis around the euro; nevertheless, we have strong supporters there as well and we are hopeful they will also increase. However, Canada would certainly have a lead role.
The Canadian contribution for the global fund helps us to maintain and expand all these programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, but as maternal and child health is so much on the agenda for this summit, I think it's very important that Canada consider the Global Fund as the major investment that the G-8 and the UN together have set up. As I indicated, we have already invested a lot into maternal and child health. Rather than trying to think about a separate mechanism or a different channel, I think it would be wise to consider the Global Fund as the potential channel for this initiative, and I know that a number of other donors would look at it the same way.
We had an editorial yesterday in The Globe and Mail, which I read on the plane coming here. I was delighted to read it, as you can imagine, but I think it makes sense: why create something new if you already have something--the Global Fund--that most donors agree is not only effective but also efficient?
We work with a small secretariat, so we can assure that there is little overhead. All the money that Canada has donated goes to the programs, to the field. Because we work without country offices, we can cover our administrative costs from the interest we get from the contributions. There's an efficient model here that would be able to address the challenging questions around child and maternal mortality that have to be addressed in the future.