Ms Carol Morgan:

I will deal first with the question on the funding gap. The humanitarian community was looking for €1.8 billion for 2014 and there was a funding gap of €1.2 billion. A further €600 million was committed in Oslo, so there is currently a shortfall of €600 million. We are hopeful that the €600 million committed in Oslo will translate into real commitments because in previous cases this has not happened.
I will address Deputy O'Sullivan's questions. While the violence was triggered by the falling out between the president and the vice-president, there were other reasons. For the past four years South Sudan has experienced a decline in per capitareal income. Following independence people had very high expectations for rapid improvements in their standard of living but instead there has been an increase of income and wealth inequality and the gap between the rich and the poor has increased significantly. Different military groups were brought together in one army but they still reported to their ethnic leaders and when the conflict broke out it developed along the lines of ethnic groupings. Probably in order to appease those involved in the previous conflict South Sudan had created over three dozen national Ministries and commissions. The country is divided into ten states and each state has a large administration maintained at significant cost. Over 70% of government expenditure goes towards payment of salaries of the armed forces and the police, leaving less to pay for the provision of basic services which in recent years have been supported by the donor communities.
Seventy-two per cent of the population is aged under 30 years and most of these people will not have had the opportunity to attend school so they are poorly educated. They have not experienced an improvement in their livelihoods and there have been very few opportunities available to them. The young volatile population has been very ripe for manipulation by the various leaders and young men have become involved in the conflict. I have seen this for myself in the camps in Juba which are supported by Concern. One camp has a lot of young men and very few women and children. On a few occasions the riot police have been called in when we are distributing humanitarian aid because the camp is very tense. The young men in the camp are very frustrated and this can be a very dangerous situation, considering the ready availability of arms. These factors have contributed to the ongoing conflict.
I refer to the question asked whether we can be sure that the people who need the aid are receiving it. The UN has an established structure in South Sudan for the administration of aid. The humanitarian country team is led by Toby Lanzer and it has done quite well in the circumstances. The clusters are fully functioning and the humanitarian community as a whole has developed a crisis response plan and all agencies participate in the clusters. We are aiming to have a multi-sectoral approach with a division of labour and duties in order to avoid duplication and to ensure the aid goes to where it is needed. Last March, Concern made an attempt to send two trucks of supplies up to Bentiu and after three weeks on the road they had to come back because they could not go any further.

In addition, they encountered numerous checkpoints where they were made to unload and reload their cargos by various groups who were looking for bribes. The situation has been very difficult. Moreover, it is a very expensive operation because so much of the material has to be transported by air. Transporting food by air, for instance, is three times more expensive than doing so by road or barge. The River Nile route was closed, for example, although I understand the UN is investigating whether it can be opened up in order to provide greater access to affected populations.