The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) urges donors to step up their funding to support UN humanitarian efforts in Yemen and to turn their pledges into commitments, Russell Geekie, the chief spokesman for the UNOCHA told Sputnik on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th February, 2019) The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) urges donors to step up their funding to support UN humanitarian efforts in Yemen and to turn their pledges into commitments, Russell Geekie, the chief spokesman for the UNOCHA told Sputnik on Thursday.A one-day High Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen on Tuesday raised $2.6 billion from donor countries that participated. In a statement made that same day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged partners to help raise $4 billion for the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen, which seeks to reach 15 million people in need across the country.
"With pledges made of $2.6 billion for 2019, we hope donors will continue being generous throughout the year to enable humanitarian programming to be sustained throughout 2019. We also urge the generous donors to turn their pledges into commitments as soon as possible," Geekie said.
Geekie stated that the dates for the next pledging conference for Yemen would most likely be decided on in the second half of 2019.
The money raised at the event will be directed, as outlined in the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen, toward overcoming hunger, outbreaks of cholera and infectious diseases, supporting displaced families, and many other priority areas.
According to the United Nations, 24 million people or 80 percent of the population are in need of humanitarian aid and protection in Yemen, which has been engulfed in an armed conflict for several years.
