Ms Ghita El Khyari:

I thank the Chairman very much. Good morning everybody and it is a great honour for me to speak here today. It is a great honour also to have this opportunity to share with all present the response of the United Nations Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund, alongside its civil society partners obviously, to the ongoing, devastating war in Ukraine.

The Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund, as the committee might already know, is a United Nations multi-partner trust fund which supports women-led and women's rights civil society organisations in conflict- and crisis-affected countries, with a strong and specific focus on local and grassroots civil society organisations.

I acknowledge Ireland’s continual commitment not only to the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund but, more importantly, to our mandate in support of the women's organisations in crises that we serve. Ireland was a founding member of the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund. Ireland was behind the creation and establishment by the United Nations of the fund and has been a consistent supporter since our launch in 2016, stepping forward once again in solidarity with women's civil society organisations in response to the escalating humanitarian crises in Ukraine and Moldova.

As the Chair said, I am joined by our partner, Ms Olena Stryzhak, from the Ukrainian civil society organisation Positive Women. She is the expert in the room and the witness to whom the committee should be listening. I will soon pass the floor to her to speak more about her organisation's work in Ukraine. I am also joined by Mr. Breifni Flanagan, my colleague at the United Nations Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund. He happens also to be a proud Irish national.

As the committee knows, the world watched on as Russia launched its unjustifiable war on Ukraine on 24 February this year. More than 100 days later, we continue to witness the devastating effects on the lives of many. As we sit here today, more than 6.5 million people have fled Ukraine and a further 8 million are internally displaced. This war, like many others, is forcing people to flee their homes to seek safety, protection and humanitarian assistance. However, the conflict in Ukraine, as has been the case in many other conflicts, is having a disproportionate effect on women and girls. Because of the nature of the war, women and girls constitute approximately 90% of all those displaced from Ukraine. They are exposed to gender-specific risks such as trafficking, sexual and gender-based violence and denial of access to essential services. We are seeing increasing numbers of reported cases of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated by the Russian armed forced as part of its war tactics.

A recent report by UN Women and CARE International also reveals that with schools closed, high demand for volunteer work and the absence of men who are called on to fight, women’s unpaid care burden has increased significantly. Women and girls have poor access to healthcare services, especially for survivors of gender-based violence. Many respondents spoke of the challenges and barriers they face in accessing humanitarian aid and services. In a matter that is of increasing concern to all of us, approximately 50% of women and men indicated that mental health was the main area of life impacted by the war. That is no surprise. As we have learned from other conflicts, backtracking on gender equality often happens during and after a conflict. It is already evident in the ongoing crisis. The war is increasing unemployment among the entire population and will likely push women into the unprotected informal sectors of the economy and increase poverty.

Women are being pushed into new roles and multiple jobs to make up for the lost family income. They are also performing vital roles in the humanitarian response in local communities. However, despite taking on increasing leadership roles in their families and communities, women are largely excluded from formal political and administrative decision-making processes. This is something we see again and again during conflicts. It is, therefore, critical that the humanitarian response in Ukraine takes into account and addresses the different needs of women and girls. Women must be meaningfully involved in the planning and decision-making processes to make sure that their specific needs are met and that they participate as experts and key actors across the response.

As we will hear from Ms Stryzhak, women’s organisations play a critical role both during and after conflict. Positive Women is facing specific challenges in funding and recognition but remain operational nonetheless. The members of the organisation serve their communities on a daily basis. Women’s organisations lie at the heart of the response in Ukraine and supporting those organisations must be a priority. That is why the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund is investing in the work of women civil society leaders who are yielding remarkable dividends towards a more peaceful, inclusive and gender equal societies throughout the world. As part of its emergency regional response efforts to the war in Ukraine, the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund is ensuring vital financing and co-ordination support to local women's organisations in Ukraine and Moldova by providing core institutional funding to allow those organisations to sustain themselves and maintain their systems and operations. We also finance their programmatic activities and actions.

Through the support of donors such as Ireland and the Irish stability fund, the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund launched a series of emergency calls for proposals to identify partners in March and April. A total of 14 civil society organisations, eight from Ukraine, including Ms Stryzhak's organisation, and six from Moldova, have been supported thus far. Through this support, women’s organisations in Ukraine and in Moldova are responding to the immediate needs of their communities by providing essential humanitarian and protection assistance to displaced women and girls, including shelter, medication and food, as well as vital psychosocial support. They are also training smaller women's groups and organisations in gender-responsive humanitarian planning and explaining how to address sexual and gender-based violence and the conflict-related sexual violence that women and girls are facing. Examples of activities include the launching of an online platform through which civil society organisations are providing psychological and legal services on conflict-related sexual violence, among other types of violence, while also raising awareness and sharing information on the issue.

I again extend our heartfelt thanks to the committee, Ireland and the Irish Government for their thought leadership in this response and for providing funding to the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund for its response to Ukraine in a rapid and efficient way. I look forward to Ms Stryzhak's briefing and to the questions from the committee.