David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests and thank them for their presentations. I ask Ms Tenorio to comment on the violent situation in Sudan, which has worsened over the last couple of weeks, and the impact that situation has had and is having on the people there. I ask her to outline the reports received from people on the ground there. An Irish diplomat was attacked in Sudan and I hope he is okay. With respect to the SDGs, what is the current situation in Somalia and Ethiopia?

It is good to see Ms Van Lieshout again. I agree with Senator Ardagh that we should focus more on disability issues. Perhaps Ms Van Lieshout can comment on the issue of mines, which cause a lot of disabilities. People have disabilities because of being born with them or suffering injuries. War causes terrible disabilities and suffering in many parts of the world at the moment. I have listed some of the places. If I listed them all, the list would be as long as your arm. It strikes me that a lot of the work we want to do, especially in education, demands that an area be peaceful so that our workers and others can go in there.

I was taken with a book I read a number of years ago called The Promise of a Pencilby Mr. Adam Braun. He wrote his book because when he was in India he asked a little boy "What do you want most in the world?" to which the reply was, "A pencil". An organisation, Pencils of Promise, was established and has done a lot of work, particularly in South America, in the last number of years to educate people. However, the circumstances must be correct to make all that happen. It is very hard to improve things if there is war, as we can see from what is happening in Sudan.

I am interested in discussing a British consulate scheme which involves schools in the UK acting as partners to schools in developing countries. There are issues at times with the inequality of relationships. Do our guests believe a school partnership scheme is a mechanism that can be used to engage people? We talk about the Government doing so much here and it must do so. There are very important things coming up with the SDGs this year at the UN and so on. We must focus on those initiatives. I suggest that we, as a committee, invite the Minister and Department officials in here to discuss ways to work on the SDGs. However, I think we need to go further. I am taken with the idea of partnerships between schools here and schools in underdeveloped countries. We can work on introducing school partnerships while bearing in mind the need to ensure there is equality. I would like to hear the views and experiences of our guests concerning this matter.

We can go on with all the other goals with respect to the rights of women and girls, in particular, which are extremely important. Women and girls suffer the most in many places, especially where climate change, war and inequality are concerned, and are often subjected to sexual violence and all that goes with that. Without peace, in a war situation it is very hard to work on a lot of these goals. My colleagues have spoken about Afghanistan and different areas where there is violence. Iran is another area about which we are concerned because girls and women there are not treated as well as they should be.

We could discuss these issues all day. I thank the delegations for the work they do and for assisting the people they represent on the ground at the face of this who often risk their lives to work in very difficult situations.