Afghanistan committee  I have been based there for the past year and a half permanently.

Afghanistan committee  Yes.

Afghanistan committee  Are you referring to CARE?

Afghanistan committee  Currently we have a turnover of about $40 million a year. We reach about 1.5 million Afghans a year. We have significant programming in women's development and women's empowerment. I believe we work with about 30,000 women each day in Kabul alone on empowerment issues.

Afghanistan committee  Currently CIDA is our number one donor on our women's empowerment program, for which we are eternally grateful.

Afghanistan committee  I can pass you those details. I don't have them off the top of my head. But CIDA has been a consistent donor on women's rights for the last 13 years.

Afghanistan committee  We were fully operative in Kabul. We were working on education and economic development with women. The thing about Afghanistan is that there are ways to do many things that I believe the international community assumes are not possible. If we work in the right ways, which often means with quite a bit of discretion, work with the right people, such as local community leaders and local mullahs, and take the time it requires to build up those relationships, we can absolutely work in very complicated and very distressing circumstances.

Afghanistan committee  Thanks, Kieran. Thank you very much for your time today. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak to you on this important subject. As you know, Afghanistan is approaching a crossroads. Reconciliation and reintegration are taking place. NATO has just opened safe passage for insurgent leaders to come into Kabul in order to hold those negotiations.