First of all, I want to welcome all of you back.
This is the beginning of one of our studies. It's on the countries of focus for our bilateral development assistance. This will be our very first of a number of meetings to have a very solid look at those countries of focus, the partnerships, and the development of that policy over the next number of years.
In front of us today are officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. We have Deirdre Kent, the director general of development policy, and Isabelle Bérard, the director general of the Americas programming bureau. I want to welcome both of you here.
As usual, the objective of the exercise is to hear from our witnesses and then to get into a comprehensive discussion about the policy matters. I want to turn it right over to Ms. Kent to get started, and we'll run our way right through this for the first hour.
As you know, in the second hour we'll have the International Development Research Centre.
I'll turn the floor over to you, Madam Kent.