Here you touch upon a problem that is typical. It is not only for the Burundi situation, but in fact, what you mention is a fundamental issue in any refugee situation of a large scale that results in the flight of talent and of competent people who should be able to keep the services in the country running but who sit idle in camps or in the cities in the country of refuge. We need to do something about that, indeed.
In general terms, as you have seen, the education of refugees at all levels, including the tertiary level, has become much more of a priority nowadays than it was. This particular Canadian government has recently indicated that a key priority for its support to refugees and its involvement in addressing humanitarian crises is education, as also is the situation with women and girls.
The UNHCR—here I speak generally, and I'll come back to the Burundi situation—is indeed rolling out much more forceful activity to support education at various levels for refugees in the host countries.
The other aspect here is that we of course hope, if the situation can be solved to such an extent that the refugees can return in safety and in dignity and that conditions become conducive to this, that then the targeted group—in the first place, the talented ones—resume the work and keep the services and the economy going in the country or restart them, but this is not always an easy process. For this to happen, we really need to have a situation in which they can exercise their profession again.
In general terms, we still hope that this crisis in Burundi can be addressed effectively so that we can work towards such a return. As I mentioned, the government very much wants the people to come back, but our figures are that they are very hesitant to come back.
If you talk about return, let me say this here, UNHCR must always be involved as a partner between the returning and the receiving country. We cannot be left outside this. We are discussing this with the Burundian authorities, but we are not yet there. There is a first meeting between our office in Tanzania and Bujumbura now scheduled for next month because the Government of Burundi wants to first arrange coming back from Tanzania to Burundi. So we are engaging, but we need to have our proper place here.
Again, coming back to the issue of education and how important it is while people are outside the country as refugees, I mentioned that Canada has made this a priority. I also want to say that when we had the summit in New York amongst all the member states of the UN last September—and there are many side events when you have such a setting—there was a clear focus on education. It was also an issue in which member states in the body called the Obama summit the next day pledged support for investment in education in refugee situations. You will see more attention to that, and hopefully also in the situation in the Great Lakes region for the Burundians.