Geneva

03 April 2018

Opening remarks at press encounter on the Pledging Conference on Yemen

António Guterres

Ladies and gentlemen from the media, thank you very much for your presence.  It is my pleasure to announce that this Pledging Conference represents a remarkable success of international solidarity to the people of Yemen.  The pledges announced represent more than $ 2 billion and if you compare with last year’s Pledging Conference, we reached $ 1.1 billion.  So practically, we have doubled the international commitment to Yemen from 2017 to 2018. 

You will ask, you had requested almost $ 3 billion, but you only got $ 2 billion.  But if you look at last year, at the Pledging Conference we had $ 1.1 billion, and afterwards we got more donations, and in the end, we had $ 1.7 billion.  And even today, several countries have already announced that there will be more donations from now until the end of the year.  So we are quite optimistic that we will be able to reach the level that corresponds to the needs detected in relation to the tragedy that the Yemeni people is facing. 

But of course, humanitarian resources are very important, but they are not enough.  It is essential that they reach the people in need.  And for that, we need unrestricted access into Yemen; and we need unrestricted access everywhere inside Yemen; and we need all the parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law, and to protect civilians; and above all, we need a serious political process to lead to a political solution. Because there was never a humanitarian solution for any humanitarian crisis.  The solution has always been political. And also in Yemen what we need is a political solution for this Pledging Conferences not to be repeated in the future.