Dubai: Saudi Arabia is organising a pledging conference for war-ravaged Yemen on Tuesday in partnership with the United Nations to help raise some $2.4 billion as funding shortages imperil the world’s biggest aid operation.
The Saudi delegation to the event is headed by Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and includes Adviser at the Royal Court, Supervisor General of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre Dr Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabiah, and a number of officials.
More than 126 parties, including 66 countries, 15 international organisations, three intergovernmental organisations and more than 39 non-governmental organisations, will participate in the event, in addition to the Islamic Development Bank, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cross Societies.
The event aims to raise awareness of the humanitarian situation in Yemen and calls for the contribution of the international community to meet the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan in Yemen for the year 2020, and support the urgent humanitarian needs there.
The conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthi group has left 80% of Yemen’s population reliant on aid. The country now faces the spread of the novel coronavirus among an acutely malnourished people.
“Anything below $1.6 billion and the operation will be facing catastrophic cutbacks,” Lise Grande, UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Yemen, told Reuters just days prior to the conference.
“We won’t be able to provide the food people need to survive, or the health care they need or the water or sanitation or the nutrition support which helps to keep two million malnourished children from dying,” she said.
The UN-co-ordinated humanitarian plan received $3.2 billion last year, but so far in 2020 has only secured $474 million, aid chief Mark Lowcock said on Thursday, adding that most agencies are weeks away from being broke.
Saudi Arabia has already pledged $525 million. The United States said last month it would extend $225 million in emergency aid for food.
Some $180 million of required funding is needed to combat coronavirus in a country with shattered health systems and inadequate testing capabilities.
“Yemen is at a precipice. All indications point to Covid-19 spreading fast and wide across the country, overwhelming the health system,” pledge organisers said in a statement on Tuesday.
Yemen has been mired in violence since the Houthis ousted the government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene a few months later.
Donors had cut funding to Houthi-held areas over concerns the group is hindering aid delivery.
Grande said several issues had now been addressed by Houthi authorities, including waiving a 2% tax on aid operations, allowing needs assessments and providing the World Food Programme with approval to start a pilot on a biometric registration and verification system.