Mr. Michael Gaffey:

On the role of other regional actors, yes, it is very important that the African Union maintain its engagement. I think it is fair to say it was a little slow at the start but it is now working to try to get involved. It has various proposals and mechanisms under discussion. Various African leaders are trying. To give them their due, Prime Minister Abiy is trying as is President Ruto. There is a stronger effort now to get the African Union involved and, on the African Union side, to look at how they can influence both parties. There is the difficulty of different countries being aligned with the different sides, but it is important to step above that. There is examination of how the African Union, perhaps through some mission, can play a role in providing protection to civilians. It is a major ask, but I think for the African Union to in succeed in doing something like that, it will need to do so with the support of the European Union and the UN. It is vital that we continue and step up our engagement with the African Union. Without going into the details of other parties, it is also vital and recognised that all of us need to engage with our friends across the Gulf region who have become involved in supporting one or other side in the conflict also. The conflict will not be resolved simply. There is much outside engagement and the next US administration, along with the European Union, will need to engage strongly along with the African Union and with the Gulf countries to press for progress towards at least a truce or ceasefire.

As we said at the start, neither side at the moment will have a decisive victory over the other and the result is untold suffering among the Sudanese people.

I go back to an earlier question the Chairman asked about international humanitarian law. Earlier this month at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ireland and the EU pushed hard to achieve the reappointment of the international independent factfinding mission for Sudan which, in its first year, determined that there have been multiple and widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity committed across the whole of Sudan and by all parties to the conflict. It is important that that mandate has been renewed and they have been reappointed for a further year. Even if it might seem difficult to act on these reports immediately, it is absolutely vital that these abuses and crimes be documented for the future.

We also need to work with the International Criminal Court prosecutor who is conducting an active investigation on the situation in Darfur. I imagine it will be necessary to have active investigations on the situation throughout the country. The documenting of what is happening through official UN mechanisms is critical. What we learn through local communities and these emergency rooms about the situation is also vital.

As the Chairman said, the sustainable development goals have been thrown off track. In 2015 we had a year of great optimism and the multilateral system. The sustainable development goals were adopted in September. The Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted in December. It seemed that the system had developed a kind of universal framework for development which had a chance of really improving the situation for the most vulnerable while also taking a more integrated approach to development with responsibilities on all countries in all regions. Progress was definitely being made for a number of years, but Covid threw matters of track significantly. Even before that, for instance, the numbers of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger were starting to go backwards from about 2019.

The level of commitment right across the board internationally has not been a strong as was originally hoped for. The generation of resources needed by governments to develop in accordance with their own priorities and plans have not been as large as should be. ODA is only a small part of the equation, but it remains very important in ensuring a focus on the poorest and most vulnerable countries and the fragile states. There is also a need to look at the whole international financial system and how it is generating and distributing resources to developing countries and how the voices of developing countries are heard in that financial system. Those debates are under way in Washington this week with the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank.

It was clear when Ireland led on the political declaration for the SDG summit in New York in September 2023 we were very off track with the SDGs. The Summit for the Future this year recommitted us to the political declaration last year, to the SDGs, to the work needed to scale up attention on the SDGs. However the truth is that only 17% of the targets are on track to be met by 2030. That is across all areas of the goals. I suppose we will not achieve the SDGs by 2030 but the danger is that countries would be tempted to give up on the basis that they are not achievable. We need to resume a focus on them and how to make progress. It is also an issue that has contributed to a certain loss of trust between the developed and the developing world with many African countries, for instance, saying that Europe and other developed countries have stopped paying attention to sustainable development goals.

The Irish Government regard the SDGs as crucial for sustainable development but also crucial for the relationship between the developed and the developing world. Ireland has played a very prominent role because we were very prominent in the adoption of the goals in 2015, in the review in 2023 and again this year at the Summit of the Future. We are active across Europe, in the European Union and in European Union development policy, to ensure that there is no deviation from the commitment to the goals. That is an ongoing challenge for us and I can assure the committee Ireland is very active on that.

Soon, of course, there will be the discussion on the framework to come after 2030. The approach Ireland is taking is that we cannot take our eye off the ball on making as much progress as possible through, especially in our case, a focus on poverty and hunger, making as much progress as possible and then renewing commitment and ensuring that we do not lose out on commitment. There might be some countries in the developing world which might have other problems to look at. They might prefer to refine down the goals and pick one or two targets as before with the millennium development goals.

It is really important for our engagement as global citizens but also our relations with the developing world and especially with African countries that we are seen to support the reinforcement of the framework agreed with the SDGs. Key to any future framework and to the current framework will be the financing arrangements, the generation of resources for sustainable development. In Seville in Spain next June there will be the international conference on financing for development. The last one was held in Addis Ababa in 2015 in advance of the adoption of the SDGs. That will be a moment where the world has to come together to examine how to finance the ambitious goals that we have set out and how to ensure that we do not pull back from them. It is a very current debate in the area of development which also has political ramifications.