Ms R?iseal N? Ch?illeachair:

The committee has been given a good picture of the global position. It is important we first mark the contribution Ireland makes to reaching the furthest behind, the work of Irish Aid throughout the world and the work of this committee in supporting the work of Irish Aid, but we now face polycrisis in many places in the world. We are looking at conflict, climate change, increases in hunger, as Ms Bennett outlined, and ongoing health challenges such as increased cholera and Ebola throughout the world. We have just emerged from the Covid pandemic, and while some countries have recovered well, others have been unable to get back what was lost, not least in the case of the poorest people, who had to spend whatever they had saved to survive during the Covid pandemic. That means they will be more vulnerable to shocks that will hit them throughout 2023 and into 2024.

There is also a stretch in funding. While Ireland is a consistent and valued donor, it is one of a shrinking number of donors globally, which reinforces why Ireland's support is so important. As Concern and many of our colleagues are finding, there is not enough money to cover the humanitarian response, invest in resilience and undertake the development work that is needed. We are making very difficult choices. Many countries are caught in cyclical crises where communities are not able to recover from one shock before another happens. In South Sudan, for example, which was referred to, where there are droughts, floods and conflict, 76% of the population is dependent on humanitarian assistance. In Afghanistan, 23 million people are completely dependent on humanitarian aid, facing drought and conflict, and the El Niño effect is due to come again later this year. A number of years ago, we came before this committee to report on the impact of locusts in the Horn of Africa and what that was doing to food sources and food security in the region. There were also the Pakistan floods late last year and the recent earthquake in Türkiye and Syria. The pressure all of this puts on the capacity of governments and communities to respond and try to support people to rebuild what they have lost is extreme.

In regard to Ireland's commitment to reaching the furthest behind, we should not ignore Ireland's work, as Ms McKenna mentioned, as co-chair of the SDG summit and how important that is. The SDGs were agreed in 2015, and there is a general agreement that if they were being negotiated now, we would not be able to secure the same commitments to the protection of human rights and our natural resources and the elimination of conflict and hunger throughout the world. That gives a sense of how important it is to ensure the declaration on the SDGs in September and Ireland’s role in that.

Ireland's role on the UN Security Council has been essential to humanitarian actors like us through, for example, bringing conflict, hunger, and climate and security to the agenda of the council. The negotiations on Syria cross-border access have also been essential, as have securing humanitarian carve-outs in sanctions regimes. The work of Ireland goes way beyond humanitarian funding in and of itself and wider funding to civil society, UN agencies and throughout the multilateral system. The committee's work as advocates for Irish Aid is very important and helps greatly us in delivering our work.