Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being here. This has been a fascinating exchange, especially the part about funding local organizations. I'll come back to that. I'd like to start with another issue.
Mr. Dongier, you clearly made the point that Africa is important for demographic and economic reasons as well as for the francophonie, and that Canada isn't doing all it could there. None of that is up for debate. We don't really know what Canada's vision is going forward. Will it have some kind of strategy or framework or policy? As officials told us here a few days ago, nobody really knows what to call this Africa plan. People seem to be making it up as they go along.
We also don't know what kind of budget will be available to implement the policy, framework, strategy or whatever. Last year, for the first time in decades, the federal government reduced its official development assistance contribution. We're now a long way from the 0.7% target. I talked about this last Monday, when the Minister of International Development and Global Affairs Canada officials appeared before the committee to discuss the estimates, and I was told that Canada had never committed to meeting the 0.7% of GDP target.
I'd like to hear from Mr. Dongier and then Mr. Côté on this.
Is it your understanding that Canada has not committed to meeting the 0.7% target?