Ms Gloria Soma:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for giving me this opportunity. I have worked in South Sudan for the last eight years and have experienced first-hand the scale of the humanitarian need but also the positive impact of development assistance on the ground. South Sudan marked its tenth anniversary last week. It is the world’s youngest nation and continues to face immense hunger, violence and now the challenges of Covid-19. The humanitarian situation in South Sudan is getting worse due to the cumulative effects of years of conflict and violence, climate shocks, including recurring floods and droughts, and now the impact of Covid-19. We estimate 8.3 million people to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2021, which is nearly 70% of the population. The expectation is 7.7 million people will face crisis-level food insecurity or worse. This is an increase of 15% on 2020. The added challenges of the health impacts of Covid-19, along with the related impacts of lockdowns, rising food prices, unemployment, falling incomes and school closures, all exacerbated by a lack of access to vaccines, have really set us back. Economic pressure can often manifest in gendered ways, and approximately 1,500 teenage girls in the equatorial states have been married off or are pregnant. The temporary closure of schools has disrupted children’s education, limited access to services such as school feeding programmes and increased exposure to gender-based violence. Many girls who have left will not return to school again. As ever, it is the poorest who are being hit hardest. Despite the roll-out of vaccines that we have seen in Ireland, vaccine access in South Sudan remains low. South Sudan has received fewer than 900,000 vaccines via the COVAX system and communities have not been adequately engaged in the roll-out process, which means poor uptake across the population. The weak health system of South Sudan is a further challenge to the roll-out. The importance of access to vaccines, Ireland’s support for the proposed waiver on the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, and public health support for the people of South Sudan cannot be overstated.

I would like to finish with the good news though. The impact of Irish Aid funding in South Sudan has been immense. Trócaire’s office in South Sudan, in partnership with local organisations like mine, has received just under €620,000 of Irish Aid funding in 2020 and into early 2021. With this, we have reached over 18,495 people with a combination of support, including food assistance, access to safe water, agricultural support, psychosocial and gender-based violence support and menstrual hygiene kits, which help to keep young girls in school. Lockdown came to South Sudan in April 2020 and between January and September 2020, my organisation saw over 6,000 reported incidents of gender-based violence against women and girls. Through Irish Aid-funded projects, cases of gender based violence have been identified, which have been reported and referred onwards. These cases would otherwise have been left unreported. Trócaire’s programme on gender inequality has resulted in increased reporting of gender-based violence cases. It has also allowed us to push for more prosecutions of sexual abuse against women and girls. It has helped us increase economic opportunities for women to gain financial independence, to support women’s participation in community peace-building initiatives and to build a flourishing women’s leadership programme where women leaders support new and emerging leaders. Real change can be delivered only by working in partnership with local communities affected by poverty and injustice. They know what works, they know what needs to change and are working to make this happen. They just need your solidarity to make this a reality.