Ms Gloria Soma:

I will talk about the issue of funding. Donors love bringing it up because I am part of that testimony myself. I know the impact of aid has been able to be bring me to be who I am today. In the case of South Sudan, we all know that for a long time we have been aid dependent and the majority of people in my generation and those who have come after my generation are still dependent on issues related to aid. It is what we know and what we have depended on for a long time. Funding gives local communities, including both women and children, the hope to be able to continue to live sustainably and to live a dignified lifestyle in the country, given the fact that the leadership in the country cannot even provide basic services to their people. It is critical at this moment and it has always been critical that, unfortunately, aid has been the backbone of survival for the majority of the population in the country.

On the issue of movement and migration that the Chairman raised, we have consistently seen that for a long time people's movements into different regions around east Africa have not been the will of the people but have happened because of the conflict that has been generated by the different warring parties in the country. As such, people move to neighbouring countries for safety and to get a better lifestyle. I mention, for example, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia, where the majority of South Sudanese have been going. When we come down to the realities, it is not that South Sudanese communities want to move into the different regions; it is because of the context we are in and the atrocities that are being committed against communities. We saw in 2016 that in a village in Central Equatoria, in the greater Yei region, people were killed along tribal lines. There was all this genocide coming through from 2016 to 2018. Those are some of the challenges that local communities and South Sudanese in general have been facing. A slight support from the international community would go a long way to ensuring that these communities can live and lead better lifestyles and hope for a brighter future.