Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 5th, 2018

[Renifa Madenga]

Thank you very much.

During the several visits I did in South Sudan, the footprint of Canada was reflected in many of the Canadian agencies working in South Sudan in the form of the Canadian Lutheran World Relief, Save the Children Canada, Oxfam Canada, and Plan International. When we talked to ordinary people, there was a feeling of this support related to humanitarian assistance on the ground. When I say “ordinary people”, I mean those who are directly affected by the conflict in South Sudan.

In terms of the interventions that Canada can take, Canada should continue to work with what I've referred to as the ordinary people. Let's say it's survivors of the conflict who are now living in PoCs or as IDPs, or when we talk of food insecurity, it's facilitating access to those people who don't have adequate food. It's also in terms of the medical facilities. The interventions I'm looking at from Canada are the humanitarian support that Canada is giving.

Then it's also in terms of issues like capacity building for accountability, so that even those local institutions can actually work directly with the people affected.

I know for a protracted crisis there is also donor fatigue. I would continue to encourage Canada to reach out to those people, because I think they are at a stage where they need a lot of help to rehabilitate, a lot of help to resettle, and a lot of help even to go through the process of recovering from the crisis.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Are those demands coming through the bodies working on the ground directly with people or are they coming through the Government of Sudan?

[Renifa Madenga]

When I spoke to some of the people in the government, they didn't mention Canada. It was about what kind of support is needed on the ground. I was speaking to some of the government entities, some of the NGOs working on the ground, some of the people actually assisting people directly affected.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Earlier this year, the UN had warned that there are going to be 1.2 million South Sudanese at risk of starvation as a result of ongoing conflict. What do you recommend for Canada? How do you see the Canadian government helping to combat that starvation on the ground?

[Renifa Madenga]

I think as a matter of priority Canada could use its diplomatic position to encourage the parties now on the ground to first of all cease all hostilities. I know there are certain groups that have not even signed the peace agreement. It is the responsibility and legal obligation of the Government of South Sudan to ensure that people are protected and also to ensure that they are provided for.

It would maybe be working hand in hand with the government to reach out, first of all, to people who are very desperate, to areas where food has not been accessible and other amenities have not been accessible, and also to work with the people who have indicated that they need more resources in terms of food security. There are areas where people need more food, where people are starving, where people would welcome accessibility and maybe mobile facilities that can bring provisions to them. I think that is an area of priority where Canada can work hand in hand with the local organizations that are already working there and some of the Canadian agencies that are on the ground.

It's continuing to access people who really need food relief, who are desperate, who are actually at a crisis or starving.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I know it's a very young country. Do you see any light in the tunnel? Do you see that it can be self-sustainable for basic necessities somewhere along the line, even with international help?

[The Chair]

Ms. Madenga, I'm going to ask you for a very short response to that question because we're out of time. Since the question was asked, I want to give you a brief opportunity to answer.

[Renifa Madenga]

I will be very brief.

There is hope in South Sudan. The resilience of the people of South Sudan shows that given an opportunity of a democratic space and given sustainable peace, they can rebuild their country. I think there are problems in South Sudan, but the South Sudanese have solutions. They can rebuild.

I see a lot of hope in South Sudan. I believe that South Sudan will live in peace and the South Sudanese will rebuild their country. Canadians will be proud that they helped the South Sudanese to build South Sudan.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

Mr. Sheekh, are you on the line?

[Nuur Mohamud Sheekh]

Yes, I am on the line. I also want to say with optimism that South Sudan is a very rich country. Its population is very small. It's 10 million people. It has vast oil resources. We understand that by the end of this year they will pump out 500 barrels of oil per day. We understand that they have massive gold resources. The land is very fertile.

Once we get the politics right in South Sudan, South Sudan will be in the position not only to feed itself but the entire IGAD region.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you both for joining us, Ms. Madenga from Washington and Mr. Sheekh. I know it's about 1:30 in the morning in Ethiopia at the moment, so thank you so much for staying up, and to both of you for your very valuable testimony as we move forward with this study.

Colleagues, with that, we'll suspend for a couple of minutes before starting the next panel. Thank you very much.

[The Chair]

We will continue with our second hour of panellists.

I'd like to welcome Kevin Dunbar and Gabrielle Tomovcik from CARE Canada.

Kevin is the director of global programs and impact, international operations and programs, and Gabrielle is the program manager, humanitarian assistance, international operations and programs.

From Save the Children Canada, we have Bill Chambers, the chief executive officer, and we also have Annie Bodmer-Roy.

Each group can give eight or nine minutes. Then we will immediately open it up to questions.

Let's start with CARE Canada, please. Go ahead, Mr. Dunbar.

[Kevin Dunbar, Director, Global Programs and Impact, International Operations and Programs, CARE Canada]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to this committee.

CARE Canada is honoured to contribute to this deliberation on South Sudan, Somalia and DRC. CARE is a rights-based international non-governmental organization. We support life-saving humanitarian assistance, protection, recovery and peacebuilding, as well as longer-term development work.

Last year, CARE reached more than 62 million people in 95 countries around the world, including South Sudan, Somalia and the DRC.

My remarks today are primarily focused on the crisis in South Sudan, its impact on women and girls, and recommendations that we can draw for Canada's role in the region.

These are both based on my personal experiences and inputs from CARE's brave South Sudanese staff, many of whom have worked at personal risk with people affected by conflict and drought for over 25 years.

I lived in South Sudan during the independence period. I had the privilege of sharing that with my South Sudanese colleagues. The atmosphere then was one of excitement and optimism. Today it's fair to say that optimism has vanished.

On my most recent visit to South Sudan, I met a mother at a clinic that CARE runs in Unity state. We talked about the services her children received, including high-energy food to help them recover from severe malnutrition. I also asked her about her hopes for the future. She said she hoped that she and her family survived, but she didn't expect peace. She expected things would get worse, with war, hunger and no services. So far, her predictions have held fairly true.

The South Sudanese displacement crisis is now the largest in Africa and the third-largest in the world. Since 2013, more than four million people have been forced to flee their homes, and it includes more than two million people who are now refugees in neighbouring countries. The majority of these displaced are women and children.

As your previous guests noted, parts of the country in South Sudan are reaching catastrophic levels of hunger that are rarely seen elsewhere in the world. Over seven million people, almost two-thirds of the population, require humanitarian assistance. Climate change and droughts are intensifying this food crisis, driving competition for these scarce resources and increasing the burden carried by vulnerable people.

This crisis has had a particularly devastating impact on women and girls. Women and girls in South Sudan make impossible decisions every day, decisions like whether to stay home in relative safety but hungry or to risk walking to distant markets or into the bush to gather firewood. Up to 65% of women and girls in South Sudan have experienced physical or sexual violence. That's 65%. Assault, abduction, rape and gang rape occur with impunity, even in broad daylight.

Some women resort to sexual exploitation for protection, food and survival. Early child forced marriages increase as parents face the impossible choice between accepting a dowry or falling deeper into debt, hunger and malnutrition. As a father myself, I can't imagine having to make that decision.

Recognizing that the global humanitarian funding is well below the needs, my recommendations today are focused on how Canada can most effectively use its resources to have the largest impact in these crises.

First, Canada needs to focus on the political solutions that address the root causes of these conflicts. The message I heard loud and clear from the South Sudanese people is that they need stability and peace. Paths to these solutions are becoming more complicated. Peace is often linked to military or security operations. Complex crises like those in South Sudan, DRC and Somalia do not have a singular cause or a singular solution.

The Canadian government should apply its whole-of-government approach to help find a negotiated political solution to the conflict. Critically, this solution needs to be accompanied by measures that address root causes, which include improving equality, building community resilience to shocks such as the impacts of climate change, and ensuring inclusive and effective governance at all levels in each country.

Effectively responding to these crises will clearly require a comprehensive regional approach. However this approach can't come at the expense of focusing on the critical needs and the root causes inside each country.

Second, we need a clear focus on women's and girls' specific needs and their agencies. Conflicts are a shock to the status quo, forcibly changing gender roles. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for change. Existing gender inequalities are compounded when humanitarian responses gloss over women's needs or simply portray women and girls as victims. Ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health services, for example, saves lives, just like clean water, shelter and food, but too often responses treat such services as an afterthought, more like an extra, so Canada should commit to the consistent and full provision of the minimum initial service package for reproductive health at the onset of every crisis and in every humanitarian response.

This ensures that emergency support considers women's reproductive needs right from the start. Women will still get pregnant and still give birth in crises.

With respect to women's agency, not nearly enough attention is given to women's and girls' contributions to social transformation even in the midst of conflict. Real change happens when programs are underpinned by meaningful consultation and engagement of women and girls.

Third, we need to fund and do more through local responders. Insecurity in active conflict often forces the suspension of activities, so we need to support programs that complement and reinforce national humanitarian actors, including local women's rights organizations. These local actors have better access and a better understanding of the local context. When provided with resources and supplementary support, they can do amazing work, yet only 2% of global funding currently goes directly to local organizations.

South Sudan is again this year the most dangerous country in the world to be an aid worker. National staff are often direct targets of violence against humanitarian organizations. Efforts to support local organizations should be matched with the appropriate resources to operate safely in these challenging environments. Additionally, Canada should continue to demand accountability for incidents when humanitarian workers are targeted, including publicly condemning such incidents when they occur.

Although a ceasefire has been reached, now is not our time to step back from efforts in South Sudan. To the contrary, I believe we need to double our efforts. Millions of people have been displaced, farmers have been unable to cultivate their crops, livelihoods and homes have been destroyed. A deep normalization of violence and impunity will leave a lasting impact on every generation, every community and every clan. This type of impact is not undone overnight. The number of people in need of assistance will remain shockingly high for years to come, but the people of South Sudan need some hope for the future, not just hope that their family will survive another day. They need hope that the international community will deliver on the promise they once gave to South Sudan.

Thank you for your interest in these forgotten crises today. I look forward to answering any of your questions. Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Chambers.

[Bill Chambers, Chief Executive Officer, Save the Children Canada]

Thank you for inviting us today and for having undertaken a study that is both appropriate and important.

Save the Children is a global INGO. We operate in 120 countries. We focus primarily on child rights protection, education, health and nutrition. We work domestically in Canada primarily with indigenous communities, youth and children, and internationally both as a humanitarian response and in sustainable development activities.

Based on our global experience, Save the Children is increasingly concerned for children in conflict, including in Somalia, DRC and South Sudan. Our research has indicated an increased number of children caught in conflict zones around the world, combined with an increase in the number of grave violations against children committed in these conflicts.

Using information from UN reports on grave violations, our researchers earlier this year identified the 10 most dangerous places to be a child, and the three countries you are studying all fall on the list.

We're focusing on South Sudan. Save the Children has been in South Sudan since 1989. We have a long history there. We're currently operating in seven of the former 10 states. Our work in food security response is integrated with health, nutrition, education and livelihoods as well as protection of the sector.

There is a certain amount of history that I'm sure you will have been studying. I won't go into that history, but the latest peace accord seems to be a positive step. The fact that it is supported and in fact sponsored by the presidents of Sudan and Uganda is a step that we think bodes well.

That said, reports as late as October from the World Food Programme confirm that there continues to be violence against humanitarian assistance delivery. Even if peace is sustained, as Kevin said, it's a long road to recovery, and immediate intervention is needed to reintegrate children into families and communities.

Kevin also mentioned the number of people displaced: 900,000 children locally, and 12,000 children separated from their families. Those children have an increased vulnerability to violence and sexual exploitation, which is a particular concern for girls, who often have to turn to prostitution and are subject in a higher degree to child marriage.

An adolescent girl in South Sudan is more likely to die in childbirth than to finish primary school. That's a statistic that is hard to imagine in our context.

Our concerns for children in South Sudan focus on three major areas: protection from grave violations, children's education, and the severe food crisis, endangering the lives of an estimated 20,000 children just in the rest of this year.

Regarding grave violations, the UN Secretary General released a report that focused on South Sudan from 2014 to 2018. There are six kinds of grave violations, as you know.

In these six, 7,000 children were recruited for armed groups and forces; 1,850 children were either maimed or killed, with a strong tendency or frequency for boys being castrated before they're killed.

It is to discourage others.

Some 1,200 children have reported being subjected to sexual violence, and 75% of those cases were gang rapes. Gang rapes are not spontaneous; gang rapes are systematic and premeditated. Hospitals and schools have been targeted. Military use of schools has disrupted the education of 32,500 children.

We hope South Sudan's recent endorsement of the safe schools declaration can lead to a decrease in the military use of schools, but it has been pretty well rampant across the country in recent years.

During this period, 2,900 children were abducted, most of them boys, but there were 600 girls, many for purposes of sexual exploitation.

With regard to humanitarian access, as Kevin also pointed out, there were 1,500 verified incidents of delivery being denied, sometimes with violence against humanitarian workers. These grave violations are not random. This is systematic use of those kinds of actions to terrorize the population.

I'll say a quick word on education. Even before the conflict broke out in 2013, only one child in 10 in the country completed primary school. As a result of the conflict, 800 schools have been destroyed in South Sudan and 400,000 more children have been forced out of school. Today, South Sudan is estimated to have the world's highest proportion of children out of school, at 51%. That's particularly acute, of course, for girls. Seventy-three per cent of girls from six to 11 years old are not in school. By age 14, you're more likely to be married than to be in school in South Sudan.

I'll leave you with one statistic regarding the food crisis. Between now and the end of the year, 20,000 children are likely to die if appropriate response is not delivered. The delivery required is not only money and food but also humanitarian access. The revitalized peace agreement is a good sign for millions of children in South Sudan, but for those children to have a future, they need guaranteed access to humanitarian services, they need humanitarian assistance to be enhanced and sustained, and they need a lasting end to the conflict.

For all three countries you are studying, child protection needs to be prioritized. In the submission we've provided, there's a long list of specific proposals, but I have three requests to make today at a high level.

The first is prioritizing accountability for crimes committed against children, ensuring that future investigations of rights violations include child-specific and gender-specific expertise with child advisers and child protection officers. If there's impunity to these actions, they'll continue to be a growing problem across the world. It's growing not just in South Sudan but also in the two other countries you're studying. We need to bring people to account or it will grow.

The second is education. We welcome Canada's groundbreaking G7 commitment to girls' education in crisis, and in that context we urge the government to include education interventions for girls in South Sudan, in the DRC, and in Somalia.

The final proposal is to meet the urgent needs of the malnourished children of South Sudan and to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches the 20,000 children who are likely to die over the course of the coming months if we don't.

Thank you for your time. I'd be happy to respond to questions.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Chambers and Mr. Dunbar. That's some sobering testimony.

Let's begin with MP Aboultaif, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you for both presentations this afternoon.

We know how much South Sudan had to go through in the first war to separate from north Sudan and what that was all about. It seems that the problems are connected in a way. We have hunger, we have kids, we have IDPs, and we have a political situation. This is a foundational problem that those countries are going through. We have to deal with so many things. Probably as a priority, we have to deal with hunger before we deal with other things. We want to make sure that people survive, but then we have to add police protection, and then accountability comes up. It's the second or third time we've heard about accountability today.

The question is to both of you, and you choose who wants to answer first.

How can we set our priorities in Canada in order to be very effective, or most effective, in this situation? I think those directions are needed for us to begin or to continue down the road to make sure that we can find some fundamental solutions to the crisis.

One thing that comes to mind when I address that is how can we set the foundation to make sure that down the road, we'll find a long-term solution with the band-aid solutions that we have to deal with?

I leave that with you. Please go ahead.

[Bill Chambers]

I'd go back to the three recommendations I made.

The first, of course, is that if there are 20,000 children who are going to die in the next months, food security is the top priority from a humanitarian point of view.

I wouldn't want to think that we would sequentially deal with the three, though. If we leave another generation of girls in Sudan to languish, we're sowing the seeds of.... I think, actually, that girls' education is part of the solution to the political, the social and the community processes. You have to keep them alive, but just keeping them alive in their current context is not enough.

Finally, globally, we need to have not just a reflex but a consistent approach to bringing to account those who commit crimes against children. These are heinous, disgusting crimes that we're talking about, and they're systematic. If we're not collectively outraged by that and if we don't ensure when we create mechanisms for monitoring that they include expertise in child investigation and gender investigation, then they'll just continue.

I don't think we can deal with them one at a time, but the first one is food to keep these children alive.

[Kevin Dunbar]

Thanks, Bill.

I think there's very little to add. I can talk a bit about it.

You're right. It is an incredibly complex situation, and I think we see parallels across all three countries and actually across all of the conflict in failing or failed states. We have underlying issues with inequality, with climate change and often with poor governance that results in root causes and in conflict. What we are seeing and what we're talking about are the impacts of that, right?

People are forced from their land, so then they need food, but because they've been forced from their land, they're not able to do basic agriculture work. They're not able to get set up for the next harvest season. At the same time, in South Sudan we had an economy that was in the tank. We had inflation rates of 161%. Even if you had money, you couldn't necessarily buy food. I heard testimony from people there that they held on to soap instead of cash, because their money just wasn't worth it. Holding on to soap was at least giving them some sort of asset that they might be able to sell down the line.

Ultimately, we need to tackle these root causes and to find a political solution to the conflict, but knowing that it's not going to happen in the immediate term, what we need to make sure of is the right services. I'm not going to argue on education or sexual reproductive health, because they're all needed in a place like South Sudan. What we really need to be focusing on are those local actors and on ensuring that we have the right funding and that it's going through to local national organizations, because they're going to be able to maintain it.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

In this overall problem we're facing, you expect that the international community will say that we have to deal with hunger, with education and with protection of children and women—we have to deal with all of this. Do you see that the plan that is in place right now is going in the right direction and is really going to be effective moving forward? If Canada can take care of hunger and food security, other countries may take care of other things, and so on and so forth.

As an overall solution, or at least as an attempt to have a solution or to be moving in the right direction, are you convinced that the plan we have right now is a good plan?

[Kevin Dunbar]

I think it's moving in the right direction. I think we need to increase the progress in that right direction.

As I mentioned, we have 2% of the money going to local actors. That needs to be a lot higher, particularly in a place like South Sudan, where organizations like Save the Children and CARE don't always have access or have to pull back due to lack of security.

We need more money systematically, regardless of what we're funding. We need more money with local organizations. We also need to be ensuring that the money is reaching some of the areas that are hard to reach.

Again, there's this insecurity. South Sudan is a tough place. You have to take charter flights to get seven or eight hours into the middle of nowhere. In a context like that, where maybe the food distributions aren't always going to reach, we need to be working with communities to help build resilience in whatever that looks like in their particular community. We need to make sure that they're able to handle upcoming shocks and the issues that are coming to face them, whether it's climate change or conflict. I think we need to look at how we're delivering these services to make sure that we're being more effective with that. For me, that really looks at focusing on women and girls and also at local organizations.

[Bill Chambers]

It is perhaps a moment in time. All of the other peace agreements that have happened to date have had Sudan outside as a wild card, as a destabilizing factor. Now we have Sudan as a guarantor, and we have all of the major donors and world powers supporting it. It may be a moment when we can actually invest in more than one thing and get Sudan on a political basis, and on a communal basis, on a better track. It's worth a try.

We have to keep them alive, but just keeping them alive won't change the dynamic in Sudan. We need to change the local and political fabric of the place, which means we have to do some of the things that Kevin was just talking about.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Let me begin by thanking both of your organizations, especially your front-line workers, the Canadians and others who are putting their own lives at risk to save the lives of others. They're really Canadian heroes, so I give a heartfelt thank you for that.

We've heard how all the parties engaged in the civil war were engaged in using rape as a weapon. We've heard that it's not just widespread and that in fact it's rampant. Two-thirds of women and girls have experienced it. It seems to be a defining feature of the civil war in Sudan. There is a culture of sexual violence coupled with a culture of impunity.

Mr. Chambers, you gave three points—and very specific points—and I'd like to perhaps come back to some of that.

Mr. Dunbar, you generally said that real change happens when women and girls are engaged in a process. You have on-the-ground experience. You talked about the women you met over a period of time. How do you envision it on a micro level and on a macro level? There's a peace process. How do you envision that women ought to be engaged in the peace processes? How do you envision them engaged down to the village level?

[Kevin Dunbar]

I think that's an excellent question, and I'm going to answer it kind of from a gender lens, which for CARE is focused on women and girls, but we also need to engage men and boys in the process.

I think in the peace process.... When I was last there, I actually met with a number of women's rights organizations that were trying to come behind a common banner to really influence the peace process, both at a community level and at the national level. I think we need to reinforce and continue that support.

While this was kind of an umbrella group of women's rights organizations, they were poorly funded, challenged in terms of organization, and divided along clan and conflict lines. There was a real willingness and energy there, but I think the international community, organizations like CARE, and governments need to be putting their momentum and support behind women's groups. That means directly funding women's rights organizations and helping to ensure that their voices are heard all the way from the community level up.

Part of that process really needs to be engaging men and boys as agents of change. If we are going to deal with that, we need to be working with them to help change some of those gender norms.