Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's compromised by the insecurity. As I mentioned, this is the first time that Ebola has hit a conflict-affected area. I believe there have been 10 outbreaks in Congo since the identification of the disease in 1976. This is the first time in an active conflict zone. The

Foreign Affairs committee  With a different effect....

Foreign Affairs committee  Absolutely, in the Congo we're seeing that. We're seeing health workers being attacked. I think it's both by armed groups as well as by concerned citizens. There's a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding about the conflict, so one of the key efforts that Oxfam is making i

Foreign Affairs committee  For Congo I would add that elections are key. Elections provide confidence in the population that their government, their representatives, respect the Constitution that they themselves have created. As I mentioned, these have been planned for several years and regularly delayed,

Foreign Affairs committee  There are many organizations. I don't see them as competitors. I see them as colleagues. If you want me to list some of them—

Foreign Affairs committee  —I would include Save the Children, which has a presence here in Canada, in Toronto. We also have the Red Cross, which is a really pre-eminent organization, as well as Care Canada. There are the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Danish Refugee Council and the International Rescue C

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  If we were to start with Congo, we're seeing that a lot of the issues are starting from the top and there is this vision that if things change there, as described by the Constitution, things would then be felt on the ground. We are seeing a political situation in which the planne

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not sure how to answer that. Is the question, what would be the plan?

Foreign Affairs committee  The vision is that organizations like Oxfam don't necessarily need to be in these countries in the long term. I think that if you have these organizations doing humanitarian assistance in these crises, it means the crises are continuing. We do see an exit for these types of relie

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, that's critical. Somalia is very insecure and Congo is very insecure, so security training has to be part of that.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's difficult to say. They all have different levels of available resources to invest in that infrastructure and different will to do so. Congo is probably the richest country on the continent with an estimated 20 trillion dollars' worth of wealth hidden in the ground. The pot

Foreign Affairs committee  I would say both. I wouldn't say that Canada should be considering peacemakers in that sense. I would say more that the context—and it starts from the top, with the government—helps define the security humanitarian challenges, for example, in the Congo. We know that, often, gene

Foreign Affairs committee  In the case of the Congo, both of those actors you described have a shared interest in both of the topics you described. The west does see the economic potential of the Congo as something that's very important. You hear the term “strategic minerals” once in a while, given the imp

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure, thank you very much. Absolutely, the context of where the conflicts are is important to understand. The infrastructure, I'm very happy that you highlighted that. I've worked in South Sudan before in rural areas. There are no roads and very little other types of infrastruc