Speeches by Rushworth.

“You talked about your four essential shifts in the future of aid, and one of those was about more technical assistance. In the context of Sudan, I am interested to know how Sudanese medics in the NHS might be able to better share their skills and support health systems development.”

“Is it a high enough priority?”

“Do you mean the mutual aid groups?”

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps this is a question for the future, but I would be interested to see some of the evidence of pushback and refusal, because we gather evidence as well as testimony—I am talking about attempts to engage and letters declining now compared with before.”

“If we had representatives of those communities giving evidence to the Committee instead of you, and we were to ask them what they currently lacked, particularly since the funding stopped, and what we could provide them with, what do you think they would be likely to say?”

“Gosh. Thank you for your evidence so far. You heard me ask earlier about the role of local organisations and the fact that, in these situations, the large development actors often vacate the field. Given the critical role of local organisations, what practical steps do you feel the UK Government could or should be taki…”

“Is it a high enough priority?”

“Is this an area in which the FCDO needs to up its game and develop the skills and methodologies within the organisation to do better?”

“So 36% is basically spent managing the risk of passing on 1.5%?”

“Do you feel we are getting resources down to that level? I appreciate your points about risk; that is a real challenge.”

“It is not easy.”

“The barriers to working with local organisations are particularly important in these contexts. When there is violence on this scale, you often see the biggest NGOs leave the field, and the ultra-local, grassroots, peacebuilding and resistance organisations are left behind. What are we doing to support them? What do you…”

“You are referring here to medics who have left the battlefield, essentially, and are now with the displaced diaspora. That is obviously important. We were in Nigeria last week and we asked them, “What is one thing you would like us to do and one thing you would like us to stop doing?” There was a very clear ask, which …”

“You talked about your four essential shifts in the future of aid, and one of those was about more technical assistance. In the context of Sudan, I am interested to know how Sudanese medics in the NHS might be able to better share their skills and support health systems development.”

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps this is a question for the future, but I would be interested to see some of the evidence of pushback and refusal, because we gather evidence as well as testimony—I am talking about attempts to engage and letters declining now compared with before.”

“If we had representatives of those communities giving evidence to the Committee instead of you, and we were to ask them what they currently lacked, particularly since the funding stopped, and what we could provide them with, what do you think they would be likely to say?”

“Gosh. Thank you for your evidence so far. You heard me ask earlier about the role of local organisations and the fact that, in these situations, the large development actors often vacate the field. Given the critical role of local organisations, what practical steps do you feel the UK Government could or should be taki…”

“Do you mean the mutual aid groups?”