Thanks for raising Lebanon in particular.
First, I would say that the Government of Canada has been very helpful by having a matched contribution both with members of the Humanitarian Coalition that Oxfam is part of and with the Red Cross. It's matching Canadian donations to the humanitarian response in Lebanon. That's fantastic.
I want to highlight how effective the match is. Right now, we're seeing that people in Canada do not know about the crisis people are experiencing in Lebanon. I will tell you, frankly, that this has been one of the hardest humanitarian emergencies to fundraise for in Oxfam's recent history. The reason is that people tend to give less for a humanitarian response when a country is hit by war. We tend to give more generously when people are struggling with drought, floods, hurricanes or any other natural disaster. People tend to only hear talk in the news about the belligerence, the bombs and the militants. We hear the geopolitical side of the story—the politics behind the conflict in Lebanon—but we don't hear much about the mom trying to keep her kids alive or about people literally living in public parks in Beirut today because they have nowhere to get shelter.
Whether your family is hit by a drought or a war, if you can't feed your kids, you can't feed your kids. I think having the government help organizations like Oxfam get the message out—telling Canadians how badly Lebanese people today are suffering—is very helpful, because we are struggling to get that attention. There's definitely donor fatigue. People feel like the world is on fire, and it's hard to know where and when to give. However, the suffering is real. Whether it's because of war or something else, if you've lost a limb, if your child has died of hunger or if you have nowhere to sleep at night, the problem is the same for you.
We need the government to help us get the word out. The matched contribution for members of the Humanitarian Coalition is extremely helpful to us, so I am thankful for that.