Background The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in the 2018 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) for Yemen that 22.2 million people – 80 percent of the population – were in need of humanitarian assistance or protection at the end of 2017, of which 11.3 million were in acute need. This included 17.8 million people who were food insecure, of which 8.4 million were “at risk of starvation.”The humanitarian response efforts last year included eight UN agencies, 36 international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and 147 national non-governmental organizations.The challenges facing these humanitarian actors have been profound, primary among them being th
Developments in March ushered in a degree of cautious optimism for an improvement to the political and humanitarian situation in Yemen. Martin Griffiths assumed the office of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, and met with President Hadi in Riyadh before travelling to Sana’a to meet with the Houthis and the GPC-Sana’a. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the UAE deposited $930 million into the 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, and the former signed an agreement to deposit $2 billion into the Aden-based Central Bank of Yemen. However, political discussions in Sana’a were overshadowed by the Houthis’ firing of seven ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia, resulting in the death of one civilian in the c
