Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Elkarib, thank you very much for your presentation. Welcome to the foreign affairs committee. We're delighted to have you here.
I was privileged to be in Juba three months ago. I had the opportunity to visit South Sudan with the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association. I believe that we were the first foreign delegation hosted in South Sudan. We have a head of office there, Adrian Norfolk, who is managing Canadian affairs there.
Canada still has Sudan as a country of focus for our foreign aid money. I know that we visited several projects going on there. We didn't get into the north, into Sudan itself, so we weren't in Khartoum. But we were in Juba, and we saw a number of projects in Juba that Canada has been supporting for several years, one of them being a hospital and a training program for nurses.
Then we flew to Wau and saw a CIDA project in Wau that is investing in agricultural assistance. We saw a number of programs where women are accessing some microfinance. It was a remarkable opportunity to see some of the country and to become acquainted with people of South Sudan.
My question revolves around the issues of education and health care, though, which I think are probably similar in both northern Sudan and South Sudan. There is an enormous Sudanese diaspora in Canada. I wonder if any of that diaspora has become engaged in both the problems and the good things that are going on in Sudan. Are they assisting in taking some of those positions of responsibility to perhaps bring a different perspective to some of the issues, particularly education?
I saw some of the child brides. I saw some little girls, who were probably not more than 12 or 13 years old, with babies in their arms, and these were their babies. The problem of child brides is something that needs to be addressed. They need education. They need the opportunity for education, because that's what's going to change their lives.
I wonder if you're seeing any recall, I guess, of the diaspora who have migrated to Canada or to other countries. Are they coming back to invest in South Sudan to help mitigate some of these problems?
Let me preface that by saying that my son-in-law is from Ghana. My son-in-law has just finished his Ph.D. here, in science. I don't think he's going back to Ghana, which is a great loss for Ghana, I believe.
Are there opportunities for the diaspora to invest, themselves?