Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Simmons, I think you're uniquely positioned to maybe try to answer a couple of my questions.
I get frustrated that we get so fascinated about the geopolitics of the region and what will happen. All that is very important; I realize Canada might have some roles to play.
But I know that during the war years, when it was very difficult, part of the reason the CPA worked--and I was at the three different rounds--was that civil society had already begun to work, even when the belligerents between the north and the south were not. So you were seeing these regional peace accords happening across the border regions. You were seeing markets that were set up with Arab and Dinka, or Arab and Nuer, or Dinka and Nuer leadership, because it was of benefit to both.
One of the things we've heard in this committee is that there were women's groups from northern Sudan that were in contact with women from south Sudan, and they were trying to help bring about peace. I know this is something Ms. Deschamps is very interested in. They now feel they're being isolated. The closer it gets to the referendum and the south voting to probably leave, these people are now feeling isolated.
My question to you is this. For things like CIDA or for the Department of Foreign Affairs, we eventually get to the point where we invest big time in Juba and other places, when really these are the regions that had already worked out accommodations in spite of some of their own tribal differences, and so on and so forth. Are we wise, as a country, to try to invest on both sides of the border in those regions, by finding groups like your own that are working in those Nile areas and others, rather than just looking at Juba? Should we not be more creative in how we as a country should invest in funding the groups that initially had put skin in the game when it came to peace, long before the big two did? Could we not be funding those groups--NGOs like your own, and others--much more than we do, to help bring about certain outcomes, especially the women's groups?