Good morning, and thank you for coming to this meeting. I'm in beautiful, sunny Vancouver, so it's just noon for me.
The idea that there are 80 million refugees or people who are displaced around the world was a cause of concern before COVID began. COVID has now exposed all of the vulnerability. You're absolutely right, and everything you said is of great concern to us.
Thank you for congratulating Canada. I am pleased with the work we are doing, but the point is that we still have the real problems. Putting out money, helping to get people food security, helping to give them housing, helping with education, all of these are essential things. However, we have, for instance, in the OSCE region, which is the second-largest region outside of the United Nations, countries that have closed their borders to persons who are stateless and who are displaced. There is nowhere for everyone to go.
We know that today countries are using COVID-19 to actually deny sexual and reproductive health and rights to women around the world. We understand everything you say; we've heard it from everyone else.
My question is simply this. Other than giving emergency funding, which Canada is pleased to do, what are the really practical actions that we can take to move forward to sustainability? This is not our last pandemic. Pandemics are going to come and go. How do we look at building sustainable infrastructure in these countries—health care systems, food security systems? How do we deal with this so that we don't have to each time treat every new pandemic or every new issue as an emergency? There are more people displaced today than in World War I, World War II, Vietnam and the other conflicts put together.
I would like to ask both of you to answer, and I will let the chair decide who goes first because that's his prerogative. What are the really sustainable, permanent things we can do so countries can be self-sufficient, so people do not have to leave? Of course, I could ask you what to do about conflict, but I think that's eluding everyone right now.
Could you please answer? Thank you.