Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of you for your testimony today.
Mr. Medhora, I want to ask a question to you first. We have heard from a number of witnesses—in fact, it was mentioned today—that poverty reduction ought to be strongly considered, as far as a mandate focus. Looking at that is something that would help the DFI avoid investing in areas that will not help to address problems of underdevelopment.
At first blush, that makes absolute sense, but the devil is in the details. I want to ask you a question about how we measure poverty. I've read articles that you've put forward that present nuances in this regard. For instance, you've written that poverty can be measured simply by looking at per-capita income levels, or according to the multi-dimensional poverty index, which looks at a broader range of factors: nutrition levels, years of schooling, clean water access, or housing, for example.
I point to that nuance because if you look at two countries that you've talked about—I read a Globe and Mail op-ed in preparation for this meeting—India and Uzbekistan, India is a country that is quickly emerging as not just a global player, but when it comes to the economy, a leading player. You could look at per-capita income levels there and be quite impressed. However, if you measure indicators along the lines of the multi-dimensional index—nutrition levels, years of schooling, literacy levels, and the like—India's actually quite poor compared with Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has low per-capita income levels, but on the multi-dimensional index measures, it does much better.
With that in mind, if Canada were to go ahead and put poverty reduction into the mandate of the DFI, could you give us some cautionary notes, perhaps, about how we measure poverty? It's not simply a matter of investing in countries that are poor. We have to understand how we measure poverty. If we do decide, in fact, to include poverty reduction into the mandate of the DFI, how should we measure poverty: by looking at per-capita income levels, the multi-dimensional poverty index, or some other measure?