Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the authorities in South Sudan over the need for the NGO Bill in that country to ensure that citizens and civil society organisations can engage in humanitarian activity, enjoy freedom of association and use monitoring and accountability systems in accordance with the general assumptions of the New Deal.

I raised concerns about the proposed NGO bill with South Sudan Foreign Minister Dr Barnaba Benjamin during a meeting in New York on 25 September. I have since written to Dr Benjamin to reinforce those concerns and provide more detail. The British Embassy in Juba has also made a number of representations to the South Sudanese authorities on this issue over the past year. In September, I met a wide selection of British NGOs operating in South Sudan, to discuss, amongst other topics, their concern about the possible impact of the NGO bill.