The Saudi-led coalition’s operations in Yemen to defeat the pro-Iranian Houthis and restore the internationally recognized Government of Yemen (IRG) are expected to end their seventh year on March 26, with no signs of a political settlement. The protracted conflict and the economic collapse it sparked plunged the country into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

According to various United Nations (UN) agencies, 20.7 million Yemenis — two-thirds of the total population — are in need of humanitarian assistance—12.1 million who face an acute need. Many of those in desperate need of help belong to the four million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Yemen is increasingly food insecure, with five million people facing emergencies and nearly fifty thousand facing widespread famine. A United Nations development program for 2021 report said 377,000 Yemenis will have perished from the war by the end of the year, nearly 60 percent of whom have died from the impact of the war on access to food, to the water and health care.

Causes of the crisis

Actors of all stripes have contributed to Yemen’s descent into the crisis. The Houthis have regularly looted UN convoys carrying humanitarian relief and food aid are often sold in for-profit markets. The blockade by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition of the port of al-Hudaydah on the Red Sea and the Sana’a international airport in the capital has restricted vital aid channels. While Saudi Arabia has expressed willingness to negotiate the reopening of these channels, the Houthis have insisted that the reopening is a prerequisite for negotiation, not an open question for discussion.

In IRG-controlled territory in the south and east of the country, poor economic governance triggered a rapid depreciation of the currency and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. Since the start of 2020, the Yemeni rial has lost almost half of its value, with the black market exchange rate to the US dollar falling from 600 to 1650 rials in some areas. The collapse of the local currency has significantly weakened the ability of Yemenis to purchase imported food items, which make up 90 percent of Yemen’s staple goods. Along with the monetary problems, government insolvency has resulted in delays in the payment of public sector wages and funding for service programs has declined.

To make matters worse, the economic collapse coincided with the decline in international support for humanitarian operations in Yemen. Donors to the UN-coordinated humanitarian response plan have met less and less of their pledges. In addition, Saudi Arabia, which previously provided the IRG with crucial injections of foreign capital to fund day-to-day operations, increasingly appears reluctant to donate additional funds due to widespread corruption within the internationally recognized government.

The ongoing Houthi offensive on Marib, the last IRG town in the historic north, has added a sense of extreme urgency to the need to reorganize humanitarian operations in Yemen. Ma’rib Governorate now hosts one million-strong internally displaced community, most of whom fled other northern governorates when conflict erupted in 2014. The Houthis’ campaign to capture the city has subjected them to frontline fighting, mortar strikes and gunfire. rocket attacks, and many camps lost access to basic services as a result.

Options for the United Nations

Despite these realities, there are options the United Nations can take to prevent a further economic collapse, avert the onset of famine and alleviate suffering in Yemen. First, the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen should lead international efforts to stabilize the Yemeni rial and resolve the issue of public sector payments.

The 2018 Stockholm Agreement negotiated by the UN previously established a pooled account to fund the payments of officials in the IRG and Houthi territories using funds collected from taxes and duties paid at the port of al-Hudaydah. While the account at the port has fallen victim to Houthi predation due to poor UN surveillance measures, the concept of a joint account still stands. During informal negotiations in Jordan at the end of 2018, the governor of the Central Bank controlled by the IRG and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) drew up a plan to hold these funds in a Jordanian account. The revival of this idea will provide a new mechanism to provide funds to officials across the country.

The international community, especially the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), should encourage the IMF to work with the WRI and the Houthi authorities in Sana’a to formulate a joint response to the collapse of the monetary system. . This should start with the formation of a group of emergency economic experts comprising officials from the two warring branches of the Central Bank of Yemen based in Aden and Sana’a to coordinate monetary policies. These cooperative measures can also help secure a new source of international funding, as potential donors see greater potential for economic recovery.

The IMF’s efforts should go hand in hand with a new set of World Bank projects designed to boost agricultural production, provide temporary cash to workers, rehabilitate services in communities and support fishermen. Some Gulf Cooperation Council countries have already set up small projects in the south Hadramaut and Ta’izz governorates, which can serve as a model for a more comprehensive economic response plan. These must be carried out by non-UN entities, as the United Nations considers these projects outside its mandate.

Instead, the UN can contribute to international efforts by developing a complementary humanitarian response plan that relies heavily on engagement with local civil society organizations. These relationships with Yemeni civil society organizations will enable the UN to identify communities with urgent needs, such as women, people with disabilities or other marginalized groups, and develop systems to provide them with protections. additional social. They will also enable more localized approaches to conflict management and economic recovery.

Finally, the UN must also rethink its engagement with the various parties to the Yemeni conflict. While all the permanent members of the UNSC have expressed their support for a unified Yemen, they have failed to coordinate their outreach efforts in any meaningful way. Together, the members of the UNSC can adopt a more aggressive diplomatic campaign that will more quickly and effectively bring together representatives from across Yemen’s political spectrum and geographic divisions.

These countries, along with the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, can then build on this cooperation to establish an international political conference on Yemen. This forum will not only pressure Iran to come to the negotiating table, but will also push the nominal allies of the WRI to tackle the crippling problem of corruption within state institutions.

The situation in Yemen cannot be allowed to continue on its current course. Every day, purchasing power declines, services deteriorate further and ordinary Yemenis sink deeper into crisis. The international community must act immediately to remedy these problems and change the course of the country from disaster to diplomacy.

Ambassador Khaled H. Alyemany is the former foreign minister of Yemen.

Further reading

Image: Afaf Hussein, 10, who suffers from malnutrition, sits outside her family home in the village of al-Jaraib, in the northwestern province of Hajjah, Yemen, on February 17, 2019. REUTERS / Khaled Abdullah