Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. I think this is going to prove to be a very interesting discussion, and one that I hope will actually raise awareness amongst Canadians about the enormous amount of work that Canadian international development does and about the amount of money that we contribute to humanitarian aid.
I was at the European Commission last Wednesday on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office. I made the funding announcement for our contribution to the Mali request. Canada gave $75 million last week. We were in the top seven donors, which is really quite remarkable. We have had a lot of money going into Mali. It's a country that we've been very focused on. At this funding conference we proved our generosity once again, continuing our work in development and humanitarian aid.
If we reflect over the last couple of years on the things that Canada has done, we look at the amount of money that went into the East Africa drought relief fund. Again, millions of dollars went in there—about $142 million, if I'm not mistaken. If we look at what we contributed to the Sahel in this last year, we stepped up to the plate recognizing early in the game that there were problems that we needed to address. That contribution went forward. Again, $47 million went in right off the bat in order to be sure that we were assisting. We're helping in Syria, where we've put about $80 million in humanitarian aid. That doesn't negate any of the work that we're doing in development. We continue with our development work because we know that, in the long run, we have to be focused on getting these emerging economies on their own feet.
I would really like to focus, Mr. Rigby, if you don't mind, on your talking about being in four other countries and looking at the experience of other countries. One of the countries that I spoke with last week at the spending conference in Brussels was the small country of Finland. Years ago they realigned their foreign development and international assistance with their foreign policy department. USAID did the same thing years ago. The U.K. did the same thing years ago.
Can you talk to us a little bit about your experience and the countries you spoke to?
I beg your pardon, Mr. Small. Can you tell us what your experience has been in discussions with these other countries and how they came to the decision that this was the best thing for them to do within their government?