Honourable member, thank you for this question.
I have been in this ecosystem for the last 20 years. We are not talking about a five-year project. That is a luxury. I have been dealing with projects of six months to a year. The maximum project we have is a one- or two-year project. That is the level of commitment from the international community and countries to such organizations as activist movements, human rights education organizations and the local organizations doing the real work. They are on the streets doing this important work for all of us. Whether it's human rights education, painting walls, advocacy or raising awareness, they are on the streets doing this important work. The projects they get are very short term.
This whole system of development aid is broken. On a question Mr. Zuberi asked earlier, I want to point out some figures that I recently wrote an article about. The international aid that is gone from USAID, the $63 billion or something in 2023-24, is the tip of the iceberg. Countries such as Germany, generous Sweden and the Netherlands—all of them halved their support for all these humanitarian international programs. The U.S.A. was just the big news that we all saw. Other countries were already doing this. The U.K. was already doing this. The notion of the global north leading a lot of humanitarian aid and development was gone with the USAID dismantling under President Trump.
At this moment in time, we have an opportunity to rebuild the system. Having these big international organizations with multi-million dollars as intermediaries is not working at this time. They are not rapid. They cannot shape-shift at the moment you need them. It's a time for all of us in this ecosystem to sit down, rethink all of this and find a solution that is both indigenous to the places you're working and to the needs of the defenders and the real people who need it at this moment.