During the years when I was minister of foreign affairs, the main thing I knew about the OAS, at the beginning, was that there existed a financial crisis in the organization. That lasted for five years, and when I was appointed secretary general, the financial crisis was still there.
There are only two ways to resolve a financial crisis. One is to increase the income and the other is to reduce the expenses. It's a very difficult situation in the continent to ask for increased contributions for the countries, so we made a substantial cut in our expenses. Something like 12% of our expenses were cut. I hope that next year I will not hear that there's an existing financial crisis in the organization, but at least we have a cushion in order to resolve that.
Plus, there were some countries that were late with their contributions. One of them, Brazil, is making their payments. They paid in 2015 and they will complete paying their debt next year. That is their plan. The other main contributor that is sort of late is Venezuela. I don't see any possibility for Venezuela to pay in the short term.
Canada is contributing in a very important way. First of all, it was a Canadian proposal to increase the ceiling of our expenses. Let's say it was $72.5 million; it was increased to $73.5 million. Canada supports a lot of projects related to development, security, democracy, and human rights in the OAS. With their specific funding and new additional resources, they are always providing so that we can keep our work going. I think if we keep on that track, the organization should be fine over the next years. We can only express gratitude to Canada for what they are doing for the organization and for the inter-American human rights system.