Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths remarks to the UN Security Council on Yemen, 15 March 2022

New York, 15 March 2022

As delivered

Mr. President and distinguished members of the Council,

Thank you for this opportunity to brief you today on the humanitarian situation in Yemen.

After more than seven years of war, Yemen is becoming what humanitarians often refer to as a “chronic emergency”. And, as aid workers know, there are grave risks in chronic emergencies, namely inertia and fatigue.

We have to avoid giving into those forces.

Tomorrow, the Secretary-General will join the President of Switzerland and the Foreign Minister of Sweden in hosting a high-level pledging event for Yemen. Aid agencies are seeking nearly US$4.3 billion to help more than 17 million people across the country this year.

Yemen suffers globally from the terrible statistic that it has the highest rate of the percentage of its overall population in need. This is why we hear so often that this is one of the gravest global humanitarian catastrophes.

Tomorrow’s event is not just about the money – though that is hugely important. It is also an opportunity for the international community to show we are not giving up on Yemen, even after all these years and with new crises emerging. And that is a very important message.

Because, Mr. President, Yemen still urgently needs help. Hunger, disease and other miseries are rising faster than aid agencies can roll them back.

New nationwide assessments done by our humanitarian partners in Yemen confirm that 23.4 million people now need some form of assistance. That is three of every four – and that is the astonishing figure which is so deeply troubling.

Among them, 19 million will go hungry, and that is an increase of almost 20 per cent since last year. And we believe, and I use these words carefully, that more than 160,000 of these people will face famine-like conditions.

Despite many calls for dialogue and a ceasefire, hostilities persist along nearly 50 front lines. This includes Marib, where the Houthi offensive continues to this day, two years in, and Hajjah, where clashes have escalated sharply in recent weeks.

Last year, hostilities killed or injured more than 2,500 civilians and forced nearly 300,000 people to flee their homes – to conclude with 4.3 million people now displaced in Yemen since 2015.

The war has also accelerated Yemen’s economic problems, pushing more families into destitution. This collapse is among the largest drivers of humanitarian needs. We see this in so many of the crises that we discuss in this chamber. Unfortunately, the outlook is grim.

Yemen relies on commercial imports for about 90 per cent of its food and nearly all its fuel and other essential goods. Many of these goods could soon be much harder to obtain and at a greater cost.

About a third of Yemen’s wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine, where the current conflict may restrict supply and push up food prices – which already nearly doubled in Yemen last year – and this could go much higher. But there is no doubt of the consequence, the harm that it will cause to the lives of so many Yemeni families.

Fuel imports have also fallen sharply recently through Hudaydah. Fuel volumes last month were less than half the average. This drop is contributing to fuel shortages and price rises, which are likely to become even more acute as the energy prices globally continue to rise.

All this means that Yemen’s import-dependent economy, because of events which have nothing to do with Yemen, is even more fragile now than just a few weeks ago. The Yemeni economy needs the support of all of us – including through foreign-exchange injections and other measures, as well as to avoid risking further damage.

We are very hopeful that Governments in the region will also look to this as an urgent priority.

Mr. President,

Much of what I have just described will be so familiar to this Council, so familiar to me and the wider international community. Why? Because since 2015, donors have spent nearly $14 billion on UN appeals to reduce the suffering, and it is an exceptional, an extraordinary and generous sum.

More than 75 per cent of that money has come from just six donors: the United States, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Commission, who footed so much of that bill.

I would like to thank all donors, including those, of course, for this exceptional generosity over the years. It has made an enormous difference, and it is important to take stock of what that generosity and the humanitarian programme and response have achieved.

First and foremost, for the dog that does not bark, there has been no mass starvation in Yemen, as we were so often reminded might be coming. The country has started down that dark road several times, including early last year, only to be pulled back by timely, well-funded humanitarian action. That is an important success.

The new food security numbers I mentioned earlier show how important it is to keep that going, to keep that effort, to contain and repel the prospect of such starvation.

Initial research also indicates that humanitarian action has helped keep morbidity and mortality rates steady during the conflict. In other words, without the level of the response, many more people in Yemen would have fallen sick and many died. That is another critical result.

These and other achievements are the result of collective action, not the action of one. Last year, more than 200 aid agencies – the great majority of them being Yemeni non-governmental organizations – worked together in coordination with international organizations, including the United Nations, through the response plan we will be launching this year, tomorrow, to help nearly 12 million people every month. And that aid, it reaches all of the 333 districts across the country.

Mr. President,

We have always been clear, however, that delivering this aid is much harder than it should be.

We are especially alarmed by growing insecurity for UN personnel and other aid workers, including recent abductions of staff. Efforts continue at all levels to secure their release.

These kidnappings – in addition to a rise in carjackings and other incidents – may signal the start of a very dangerous trend.

Houthi authorities also continue to detain two UN staff who were arrested in Sana’a last November – a completely unacceptable violation of UN privileges and immunities.

Beyond the security risks, humanitarian aid agencies also continue to face the familiar bureaucratic and other obstacles that hinder their work. These problems are especially severe in Houthi-controlled areas, where they include restrictions on movements, attempts to interfere with aid operations and other challenges. Last year, these kinds of obstacles delayed or otherwise affected assistance for millions of people.

Here, too, there have been some improvements. Over the last two years, agencies have worked very closely with donors – many represented in this chamber – and other stakeholders to address these challenges, these impediments, through detailed negotiations.

One of the key improvements is the completion of the three new needs assessments that produced the figures I cited earlier.

But there is a lot more work to be done. Many more improvements are still needed, including in data collection, in monitoring and other areas – these possibly dull but absolutely essential elements of an effective response plan. This remains a top priority for agencies and donors, working closely together this year and coming together tomorrow.

The Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation, a massive operation, a massive task, will be published in the coming weeks, and this will also help us. It is an objective review of humanitarian performance.

On a separate and positive note, Houthi authorities in Sana’a last week signed a memorandum of understanding on the SAFER tanker. This confirms the agreement in principle we announced last month, which David Gressly, the humanitarian leader in Yemen, has been working on, and brings the world just one step closer towards solving a very dangerous problem. And we must hope that doing so will happen in May at the latest.

I have, when I was in Hans’s position, frequently talked to this Council about that, about difficulties that the UN has been encountering in trying to get agreement on that. Let’s hope this works, and a huge thanks to the Government of the Netherlands for its support and assistance in making, bringing in this private sector hybrid operation.

But all of these achievements are now at risk because aid agencies are facing alarming and unprecedented funding shortages, as I warned last month.

It is astonishing to say, but two thirds of major UN programmes have already scaled down or closed in recent months for lack of money, including deep cuts to core services like food aid, water, health care and relief for people fleeing the violence in Marib and elsewhere.

So, if we have one message here today, if I have one message today, Mr. President, for the world, it is this: Don’t stop now.

The UN and its members must keep working together to help the millions of Yemenis who urgently need it and who deserve it. They must show that being out of the headlines does not mean being left behind.

We will look for generous pledging tomorrow and prompt disbursement.

Attention and investment are needed in the longer term, too, to support Hans’s efforts because, as my predecessor said every time in this chamber, it is the efforts of the Special Envoy to bring peace and resolution to this conflict which is the hope of all of us and the greatest priority.

Thank you.