The UN has announced that it has received pledges of more than two billion dollars for Yemen, out of a total of three billion in the appeal launched on Tuesday at a donor conference in Geneva.
"This is a remarkable success for international solidarity towards Yemen" António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Opening the conference at the Palais des Nations on Tuesday morning, the UN chief stressed that Yemen was "currently experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world", and that the UN needed $2.96 billion for its emergency programs in the country this year. "We can and must prevent" this catastrophic situation "from becoming a long-term tragedy", he warned.
More than 40 member states and organizations have made pledges, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a press release following the conference. Prior to the Geneva meeting, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had already donated almost a third of the appeal, with contributions estimated at $930 million.
"But the scale of the suffering we see in Yemen requires rapid and comprehensive funding for the 2018 response plan," pleaded Mr. Guterres, who notes that the plan has been drawn up so that every dollar goes where it is urgently needed.
In 2017, the donor conference, already organized by Switzerland and Sweden alongside the UN, raised $1.1 billion.