Thank you very much.
Yes, as you pointed you, we have been involved for a number of years. We have not been physically present all those years. We've been participating with the Mali Red Cross, always trying to give them the lead in their programs and to support them in the strategies and the priorities they develop—but among their priorities are disaster response and emergency response.
In this latest crisis they have been working very closely with the ICRC, as pointed out by my colleague, Rob Young. They would not have been able to do that if they weren't there and already on the ground, with a presence in a wide area of the country and in the different regions. That presence is very important. We are working with them in capacity-building to try to strengthen not only their ability to respond to emergencies, but also their ability to deliver services to their constituency.
One of those areas is health. A number of Red Cross societies are strong in the health area, as we are in Canada, in the Canadian Red Cross, and the maternal and child health program that we are conducting with the Mali Red Cross, with support from Canada, is at least a beginning. I would say that we need to do much more, because the scope, the range, and the period of that work are still a bit limited, but it is taking advantage of the fact that Red Cross volunteers have a basic training in first aid, and on top of that training in first aid they can be helped to deal with issues affecting child health at the community level.
We know that an investment in health generally is a good investment, for two reasons. We know it pays off economically—the studies show us that—and we also know that it builds resilience. In the communities that have to respond to some other kind of threat or crisis, if they have stronger health in their communities, especially for women and children, they are able to respond in a more resilient fashion, so we're building resilience.