The EU will commit more than €193 million in aid to the most deprived and vulnerable populations in Yemen, including €136 million in life-saving humanitarian aid. The European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, announced this at the International Humanitarian Forum in Riyadh on Monday 20 February.
The €136 million will fund the activities of UN agencies and NGO partners in the areas of health, nutrition and food aid as well as clean water and sanitation to prevent the transmission of epidemics in this small country, which has been ravaged by war since 2015.
The development aid, in the amount of €55 million, is intended to support livelihoods and to meet food security needs, as well as funding longer-term development and self-reliance. It will aim to help Yemenis build livelihoods and produce food locally.
“Yemen remains one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Seventeen million people are food insecure”, Lenarčič said in a statement, urging “all parties to ensure unrestricted humanitarian access and facilitate the operational environment for humanitarians”. Both he and the Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, stress the importance of a political solution to the conflict.
Since 2015, the EU has disbursed €998 million in humanitarian aid and €487 million in development aid to Yemen. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)