UN calls out Saudi Arabia and UAE for not paying Yemen aid pledges

United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock called out Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday for only paying a “modest proportion” of the hundreds of millions of dollars they pledged five months ago to a humanitarian appeal for Yemen.

Both countries each promised $750m at a UN fundraising event in February that was seeking $4bn, but Saudi Arabia so far has paid only $121.7m and the UAE about $195m, according to UN figures.

Saudi Arabia leads a Western-backed military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 in a bid to restore the government ousted from power by the rebel Houthi movement. The UAE is a key member of the coalition.

“Those who made the largest pledges – Yemen’s neighbours in the coalition – have so far paid only a modest proportion of what they promised,” Lowcock told the UN Security Council, adding that as a result the UN appeal was only 34 percent funded compared with 60 percent at this time last year. Saudi UN Ambassador Abdallah al-Mouallimi said Saudi Arabia had paid more than $400m to the UN and other aid organisations this year.

“This year we alone we have paid more money into Yemen than any of the donors in the world,” Al-Mouallimi told reporters. The UAE mission to the UN said the country is “currently working with the UN on the modalities of the 2019 commitment to ensure maximum benefits for the Yemeni people” and said that since April 2015 it had given $5.5bn in aid to Yemen.

Source: Middle East Eye