Sure, thank you.
Full disclosure, I am Lebanese. I have dual citizenship. I am Lebanese and Canadian. I came here after the civil war ended.
I believed...when the explosion happened and we saw the results, all my contacts in Lebanon—because I do have contacts who work in local organizations—realized that there was a commitment that was made, but the actual transfer of the money took very long to get to Lebanon and to get to the institutions that were helping people. That was number one. That's why I said it was too late, because it took very long for it to get there.
Number two, along the way there were chunks that were removed for administrative costs between international organizations and local organizations, meaning that not all of it got to Lebanon.
Number three, we did not work with local organizations as much as we should have.
Having worked at CIDA, I do know that PCO does a really good job in trying to understand the local actors on the ground and who is there and who is not there. I know that our embassy in Lebanon—because I also worked on the Lebanon program—also has a very good handle regarding what local organizations exist and which ones don't exist and who is aligned and who is not aligned politically.
We had the capacity and we had the knowledge to work with local organizations, but unfortunately, we ended up working with large ones and diverting some of the money into the administrative financing of these initiatives rather than truly helping people.