Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you gentlemen, both of you, for some provocative, thought-provoking messages.
I sense from the testimony we've heard and from the questions and discussions among members since we began the countries of focus study that there will be encouragement to the government to be more ambitious in moving our aid percentage, if not to the 0.7% ideal, then at least closer to the historic point between those two levels.
I'd like to ask you, Mr. Greenhill, for comments, and perhaps Mr. Werker as well. You suggest that two countries that we might be very wise to focus on enthusiastically are Haiti and Afghanistan, two countries where we had ambitious initial investment in both security and development. I think the Canadian government's performance in the immediate aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, along with the other major donor countries, was highly effective. It was probably a model for international response for whole-of-government interdepartmental co-operation and focus on the ground. However, six years later, there are still slums on hilltops. Haiti is basically under a military administration, the Brazilian-led MINUSTAH, and the biggest problem there is just the complete inability to restore proper governmental administration.
We've seen, I think in both Afghanistan after the withdrawal.... The cause of the withdrawal of our military forces was partly that Canadian public support for those two countries had visibly diminished, given the lack of results that perhaps were expected and given the total dollar amount of investment. I am just wondering what Canada would do differently in terms of making Haiti.... Let's take Haiti. There's a political reason to be in Haiti as well as a developmental logic. I'm wondering what you would suggest we do differently to achieve a better outcome sooner.