Ms Karol Balfe:

Some of the questions that have come up are around land. This is an issue that is of critical concern to the countries in which we work. The pace of land acquisition that has happened since 2008, since the food crisis there, has taken the world by surprise and governments and civil society are just beginning to respond properly to that. It is difficult to generalise but, from reports and documentation on this, it would be fair to say across the globe there is little consultation with indigenous communities who are on the land whose land is being taken. There is a human rights principle around free prior and informed consent and in some countries that is being adhered to. However, in some it has been adhered to in a tokenistic fashion.

We are familiar with the situation in Colombia in regard to land grabs. It is also a focus area for us. This year we will be publishing research, doing an update looking at the global scale of land grabs, in particular, at how the Irish Government, the European Union or the world should respond to this issue. There are reports showing that the pace of land grabs may have been exaggerated in the initial literature rush on this and in this research we want to look at what is the current pace of land acquisitions globally and, crucially, how civil society responds and how we support our partners who are often at the coalface of these issues. We hope to be able to update the committee later in the year, but I would say to Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan that it would be a consistent experience that local communities' rights are not being respected.

An important distinction in regard to land acquisition is that it happens in different ways in different countries. If we look at how land has being acquired in Sierra Leone, it is different from how land has been acquired in Angola. In Angola, there is some food production and biofuels but there is also large-scale agricultural plantations which are displacing poor people. There are a variety of factors. We stress that it is important to look at each context when looking at the issue of land.

Specifically, in terms of the Human Rights Council, Ireland's role and the steps that it can take, we are encouraged by the Irish Government and the officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who are working as part of the Human Rights Council and preparing Ireland's reports. We have had previous experience with partners from Colombia where the Government met those partners and heard their concerns around gender inequality and protection of human rights defenders. Ireland was supportive in putting forward recommendations from our partners. We realise we are knocking on an open door. However, it is important to highlight the role of the Human Rights Council.

It would be safe to say that most states care about their international reputation and Angola is no exception. It is a matter of using this opportunity at the committee to highlight what we as a State can do. Angola will be going before the Human Rights Council in October this year. The Irish Government will be preparing its report over the summer and all states that sit on the Human Rights Council have agreed that they will only make two recommendations to the state that is reporting. We would urge that committee members would urge the Government to ensure that dealing with this drought and its impact on economic, social and cultural rights would be part of its presentation, particularly around the right to food.

The conference in Angola was convened by a consortium of civil society organisations, Christian Aid partners and others. The outcome of that conference was to highlight, with the Government, the need to take action on the drought. It is an example of where a civil society organisation can play a vital role in ensuring state accountability. It ties to Deputy Neville's question about the long-term aspect of some of these countries with which we work. We, in Christian Aid, believe that development only works when power is used accountably and for the social good and that there is a critical role for organisations such as ourselves to support local organisations, not for us to go in there to do it but to support the partners from Angola, Colombia or Sierre Leone so that they themselves can transform the power relations.

We would echo committee members' concerns around gender quality. It is a core concern for Christian Aid as well. It is one of the central objectives in our strategic plan and something that we contribute to. We, as Christian Aid, currently chair the Irish Consortium on Gender Based Violence and we will play an active role in ensuring that gender equality is part of the development agenda.