Good morning, everyone, and welcome to meeting number nine of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we have a briefing on the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. To all of those who were able to make it in, even though there's only one elevator working, welcome. It's always amazing when you have a brand new building that we could actually have only one elevator working so soon.
Here's what we have in terms of business today. We have witnesses that we're going to hear from for the first hour or so, then we'll get into some committee business and go from there.
I'm not going to do any more talking. I'm going to turn it over to the witnesses. Once again, I want to welcome everyone and thank them for taking the time to be here this morning.
We have with us Svend Robinson. I think pretty much everyone should know Svend. He's a senior adviser on parliamentary relations.
Welcome back, sir.
We also have with us Christoph Benn, the director of the external relations and partnerships cluster.
Both of these gentlemen are with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
From CIDA, we welcome two gentlemen: Paul Samson, acting vice-president of the multilateral programs branch, and David Stevenson, who is the director general of the global initiatives directorate.
I believe each group has an opening statement, after which we'll proceed with questions, like we normally do.
Why don't we start with you, Christoph? Welcome. I'll turn the floor over to you.