Foreign Affairs committee  I would start by saying that continuing to fund comprehensive medical and psychosocial responses to sexual and gender-based violence is key. Our role as a medical and humanitarian organization is to bring that very high level of care to the places where we work. We're able to provide a comprehensive package of medical interventions, psychological services and other things.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I'll say a few things. The first is that I think we have the mechanisms in place, from a legal perspective, to provide clarity around the fact that humanitarians are afforded certain protections under international humanitarian law. I don't think that this is necessarily a new laws kind of question.

Foreign Affairs committee  As I say, we're seeing large gaps in the humanitarian response in North Darfur, where, as mentioned, there's a malnutrition crisis. For example, we find ourselves as essentially the only international organization with a presence on the ground at the moment, despite massive needs.

Foreign Affairs committee  We need to think of this as a regional crisis as well. Certainly, the situation in North Darfur today is quite severe, but so are the needs in eastern Chad, where access is much more straightforward and easier. There's obviously a funding gap, and there needs to be more of a scale-up, but it's very possible to deliver assistance to people in need, particularly, as I say, in eastern Chad.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not going to comment on the financing aspect of it because I think that's being covered, but I will say that we have some significant concerns about the triple nexus approach as a humanitarian organization. We are able to operate in very difficult situations because of a real and also perceived application of humanitarian principles of independence, impartiality and neutrality.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I don't think the lessons have been learned. This is a global issue, in the sense that access and affordability considerations are not being baked into the way that funding is being allocated for the development of things like vaccines and therapeutics. One of the very clear lessons learned—and in fact, it's recommended in multiple reports from different parliamentary committees—is to include access and affordability provisions in funding agreements, in the funding provided for the development of vaccines and therapeutics, basically to say that if Canada is providing funding to develop a medicine, that medicine should be made affordable and accessible to Canadians and people around the world at reasonable and fair prices.

Foreign Affairs committee  There is a funding consideration here. There is a dollar-and-cents problem. I'm not suggesting that Canada needs to be the only one that closes that gap, but we need to be honest about a reality that there needs to be a mobilization of donors. I think that is an area where Canada can play a significant role in not only being the funder but also mobilizing others to fund the humanitarian response.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's understood. Some of this comes down to how organizations position themselves in these crises as well. We are a humanitarian organization that builds in emergency response capacity and that ability to pivot and scale up in those situations. Part of this is just about influencing the way that the humanitarian system operates and how the international development system operates as well.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's not possible for me to give you a particularly comprehensive answer here, but we have faced administrative blockages in everything from visas and travel authorizations to bringing in surgical supplies to parts of Khartoum, where we have been blocked and denied. I want to acknowledge that Canada was one of the countries that spoke out with other donors pushing for these blockages to be alleviated, but I'm mentioning that, really, to give you a sense of the challenges of operating in this environment, and the reality that this is something quite practical and pragmatic that the international community, either as a group of donors or individually, needs to be speaking out about—that is valuable.

Foreign Affairs committee  There are massive gaps, no question, so providing focused assistance in that one area has been a real success. I will say that, from a humanitarian perspective, Canada is a good, principled humanitarian donor in the sense that there's not an attempt to direct the overall activities of humanitarian organizations.

Foreign Affairs committee  Absolutely. I think that there have been very strategic investments in sexual and reproductive health and rights, and that is a long-standing commitment from multiple Canadian governments.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières, is an international medical humanitarian organization that provides medical care to people affected by armed conflict, natural disasters, forced displacement and neglect. We carry out emergency medical interventions in more than 70 countries around the world, where access to health care has been disrupted and urgent needs cannot or will not be met by local authorities or other care providers.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. I'll answer quickly because I think you also wanted Mr. Ferri to jump in. There are a couple of things. First of all, I'll say that our position has always been that removing intellectual property barriers was one part of the solution. I think it has always been clear that removing the patent issue from the equation was never going to be entirely sufficient.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. Unfortunately, I can't speak specifically to the CARE report because it's their data, their analysis. What I can say from what we have seen throughout the COVID pandemic is that it has been very much along these lines, and there has been clearly a differentiated impact along the lines of gender in many of the places where we work.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. In our programs everything we do is done on the basis of a needs assessment. We are an impartial organization. We provide medical assistance on the basis of need alone. A fundamental starting point for any medical intervention that we do is a needs assessment to understand what a community's health needs are, what their priorities are and how we can best meet those needs.