Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Osotimehin, for this update.
I must say I'm sure that everyone on the committee respects you greatly for taking on the challenge. Your job is incredibly challenging, given the statistics that you quote of the 100 million people around the world in need of humanitarian support, 25% of whom are young women, and the fact that there are 61 million plus or minus on any given day displaced people among whom the most vulnerable are women and young girls.
My first question has to do with a request that you made yesterday in a newspaper interview suggesting that Canada re-engage with Nigeria, with your country of birth, on the long journey to rescue the school girls and suggesting that Canada had skills, abilities, and resources that might help in locating and rescuing the school girls.
I wonder if you saw the article that was published today on a noted Canadian diplomat, of whom we are incredibly proud, Robert Fowler, who himself was a hostage for 130 days and was held by al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, but he was kidnapped in Niger. He said that he was actually skeptical that Canada could in fact provide the sort of help and resources that you suggested to rescue the school girls. I wonder what your response would be to that.