Maybe I can just put a little context around the issue you're asking, sir. The Auditor General's report and the audit period that was undertaken was during a period when all donor agencies were undergoing quite a shift in terms of how they were going to do their work. That really is under the rubric of aid effectiveness. There was a meeting in Rome in 2002 that got the ball rolling. There was the Paris Declaration in 2005. There was a meeting in Accra, the Accra agenda, in 2008. All donor countries have been struggling to try to figure out how best to put their dollars to use.
That has meant that all agencies have been trying to figure out the best way to have effective assistance, and I think that's consistent with what you would expect here. That in itself has generated a degree of change, and CIDA—and I think it shows in the Auditor General's report—was looking at how to do that better and was learning as it was going. I think a lot of the change and the turn that you're seeing, that we are now able, I believe, to resolve and give much stronger direction on, is because we know more now about how to go about effective assistance.
That's one piece of context. As you would expect, in any organization when there is change, governments change. There were three ministers in one government, and maybe two ministers in another government. That does create some change in transaction costs as people have to get up to speed. I believe for the current government, starting in 2007, the budget right off the bat said that CIDA was going to focus its international assessments, it was going to focus on results, it was going to untie its aid, and it was also going to decentralize its operations. That was also followed up in the 2008 budget. Since then you have seen a consistent rollout of untying, countries of focus, thematic priorities, and now we're implementing it in the agency.
I think we have the direction we need now to actually do everything that you would want us to do in terms of making our aid more effective.