Ms Assalama Sidi:

Again, I will say thank you very much for having me here as a representative of Oxfam and all the other partners, of course. This is clear evidence that the committee cares about what is going on in Africa and a willingness to provide support, which is really meaningful for Oxfam and all of us, particularly me as an individual sitting here and witnessing concretely with evidence everything happening around me.

If I have a key message it is really around insisting that if donors do not invest more than what they have already committed to, they should not reduce the envelopes they have committed to. That is one message.

We are really living in a global world. We used to say that in the media but it is becoming more of a reality. We have seen with Covid-19 we all became a global world, frightened by a microscopic virus nobody could see and suffering in the same way. That was regardless of where we lived on the planet. Covid-19 has really shed light on the inequalities that are happening in the world, and the Ukraine crisis is doing the same thing. Living in this part of the world, we have seen that donors and governments can easily mobilise billions of dollars to support a cause. In the same way with the humanitarian principle, which is a question of ethics, if people are suffering in Afghanistan and eastern and western Africa, they should be seen as human beings and their suffering should not be ignored. Ultimately, what matters is saving lives.

That is what I have to say. Again, I thank the committee for having me virtually in the room along with other colleagues.