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UN Resident Coordinator in Yemen - Press Conference 19 January 2025
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Press Conferences , Edited News | OCHA

UN Resident Coordinator in Yemen - Press Conference 19 January 2025

ENG FRA

Yemen update – OCHA

TRT: 1’59”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 19 JANUARY 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Speakers:

  • Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.

 

 

SHOTLIST 

  

  1. Exterior wide, UN Geneva flag alley.  
  2. Wide, UN Geneva Press room, podium speakers.
  3. SOUNDBITE (English) – Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen: “The simple narrative is, children are dying and it's going to get worse.”
  4. Medium-wide, podium speakers.
  5. SOUNDBITE (English) – Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator:
  6. “My fear is that we won't hear about it until the mortality and the morbidity significantly increases in this next year.”
  7. Wide, podium speakers, journalists.
  8. SOUNDBITE (English) – Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen: “It's an extraordinarily complicated situation; you know, just in the last month in Aden, we went through situation where you have the Government of Yemen in charge, then over 48 hours, the Southern Transitional [Council] situation took over the whole of the Government of Yemen areas, including areas they’ve never been in forever.”
  9. Wide, podium speakers, journalists
  10. SOUNDBITE (English) – Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen: “And then four weeks later, they had announced that in reality they had dissolved and now the Government in Yemen has retaken those areas. But at the same time, we’ve got demonstration in Aden saying that, ‘No, we’re not, we’re still there.’”
  11. Wide, podium speakers, journalists
  12. SOUNDBITE (English) – Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen: “It's terrible for them; some families haven't seen their loved ones in five years. They don't know the conditions of their detention, they don't know where they are, they don't know if they're going to be sentenced to death in the coming days.”
  13. Medium, journalist.
  14. Medium, journalists.
  15. Medium-wide, journalist.

Yemen: Children are dying and it’s going to get worse, aid veteran warns

In Yemen, renewed political instability threatens and economic woes linked to the war to complicate the already difficult task of helping vulnerable people suffering from deepening hunger, illness and displacement, the UN's top aid official there  said on Monday. 

“The simple narrative is, children are dying and it's going to get worse,” said Julien Harneis, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen. “My fear is that we won't hear about it until the mortality and the morbidity significantly increases in this next year.”

The alert follows an attempt by forces affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council (STC) to expand their presence in the resource-rich and strategically important eastern governorates of Hadramout and Al Mahra, a move reportedly reversed earlier this month by Government-aligned forces backed by Saudi Arabia.

The latest crisis comes after well over a decade of fighting between Houthi-led forces - who control the capital, Sana’a – and the internationally recognized government in Aden, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

“It's an extraordinarily complicated situation,” Mr. Harneis told journalists in Geneva. “Just in the last month in Aden, we went through situation where you have the Government of Yemen in charge, then over 48 hours, the Southern Transitional [Council] situation took over the whole of the Government of Yemen areas, including areas they’ve never been in.”

Just four weeks later, however, a delegation from the STC released a statement while in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, announcing that they had in fact “dissolved” their movement, allowing the Government in Yemen to retake the recently captured areas. “But at the same time, we’ve got demonstrations in Aden saying that, ‘No, we’re not [disbanded], we’re still there,’” Mr. Harneis explained.

Last week, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg told the Security Council that this latest political and security upheaval underscored how quickly stability could unravel without a credible, inclusive political process to bring a negotiated end to the debilitating war.

Securing a peaceful future for the people of Yemen and providing lifesaving help has also been complicated by the ongoing detention of UN staff and diplomatic workers, among others, by Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran and control Sana’a. Mr. Harneis described the torment for the families of those still being held: “It's terrible for them; some families haven't seen their loved ones in five years. They don't know the conditions of their detention, they don't know where they are, they don't know if they're going to be sentenced to death in the coming days.”

Latest UN aid team data shows that more than 20 million Yemenis – about half the population – will face acute food insecurity next month, while tens of thousands could face famine-like conditions.

“We are expecting things to be much worse in 2026,” Mr. Harneis said.

The country’s health system is also collapsing. More than 450 facilities have already closed and thousands more are at risk of losing funding. Vaccination programmes are also under threat and only two-thirds of Yemen’s children are fully immunised, largely owing to a lack of access in the north.

“The way that economic and political decisions are playing out…food insecurity is only getting worse across all parts of the country”, the UN aid official maintained.

“We're going to see a major change where the health system is not going to be supported in the way it has been in the past.”

Despite access restrictions, UN partners reached 3.4 million people with food assistance last year, along with emergency support during floods and disease outbreaks.

The UN has been working in Yemen since the 1960s, helping to make development gains and protect the country’s most vulnerable people. “And then suddenly in the last couple of years this breakdown…inexplicably,” Mr. Harneis said. “That is a terrifying effect on the humanitarian workers.”

ends

Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
Sorry for for the waiting and thank you very much for being with us at this press conference on the humanitarian situation in Yemen and the work of the UN.
We have the great pleasure to have with us Julia Arne, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.
As usual, Mr Arne will deliver some introductory remarks and then we will have time for question and answers.
And I would like also to welcome the journalists who are currently online.
So Julian, you have the floor first.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much and thank you for your patience.
[Other language spoken]
So it it, it took me a bit of a while to find the room and and such.
So the, I've just come from Adam 2 days ago and I thought it was particularly important to meet with the, the media, the press to, to talk about the, the situation there and to, to have an exchange with you.
You are part of our, our world.
And I, I really want to have a conversation now.
The context in in Yemen is very, very concerning humanitarian wise.
We have a last year we had 19.5 million people in need and the humanitarian response plan was only 28% financed.
We are expecting things to be much worse in 2026.
[Other language spoken]
Well, the, the, the way that economic and political decisions are playing out the, the, the situation of the food insecurity is only getting worse across the whole of the, across all parts of the country, but particularly on the Tahama along the, the Red Sea, we're seeing that playing out into, into malnutrition and the health system, which has been supported by the United Nations with the World Bank for, for 10 years now.
We're going to see a major change there where the the health system is, is not going to be supported in the way it has been in, in, in the past.
And and that is going to have very major consequences because the very the, the, the government and the, the authorities in Sana do do not have the capacity to support the health system to, to, to finance the health system.
And therefore in a country which has already seen the highest rates of measles in the world, country which has already frequently had cholera epidemics, we're going to be very vulnerable to epidemics across the country, but particularly in the north.
The other element which makes our work so much more difficult in the north is the detention of 73 UN colleagues.
We have had 73 colleagues, the first of whom was descend in 2021, then in 2023, then in 2024 and then twice in 2025.
And, and with those detentions and the seizure of our offices, it has meant that the UN does not have the conditions for us to be able to work, which is, you know, personally, you know, I've, I've worked twice in Yemen and in total six years before the start of the war, the beginning of the war and these last two years and was contributed to, was personally part of setting up a lot of the humanitarian endeavour across the country.
And to see our, our humanitarian response so hobbled is, is, is terrifying.
I'm very worried for my colleagues, but above all, I'm very worried for what that will mean for a humanitarian response for Yemeni population that so badly needs the assistance.
Now we are working with the broader humanitarian country team, the INGOS, national NGOs to see how other organisations can step up, do more to, to cover what the UN is doing.
But there are some unique capacities and that only UN agencies have and only the UN agencies have the, the scale of, of response that is required for, for a country where, you know, for example, 2300 Primary Health care systems have been supported by UN agencies.
No, INGO has the capacity to, to support all of that.
So it's, we're going to have a very difficult time and we will as a humanitarian community do our best to, to restructure and reorganise to be able to do that.
But in the current circumstances, it's deeply challenging.
And then obviously this isn't a broader situation of a very constrained funding environment.
So that those are the that's the sort of the overview of the challenges and maybe we get into the questions if that's that's all right.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much, Gillian.
And of course, as you say, we we now go to the question and start, as usual with the room.
Robin is the correspondent of AFP.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Do do you feel that with everything else that's, that's going on in the world at the moment, we think of Gaza, Ukraine, even Greenland, that Yemen and the, the humanitarian situation there is being totally overlooked.
And, and secondly, you spelled out the, the financial situation for 2025, for 2026.
How many people are going to be in need of humanitarian aid?
How many of them do you think you'll be able to reach and what is the funding situation?
How much money do you need and how much do you think you'll you'll be able to get?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Of yes please.
[Other language spoken]
One one by one.
[Other language spoken]
Sorry, Sorry, I'm not very good on the press thing.
Thanks for the question, Robin.
So the, you know, it really depends on which media you're, you're looking at the, I mean, in fact, you can see it today in this press conference of the online connections from the, from the Gulf region and from and the broader Middle East.
There's a lot of interest.
And when you look at the regional media or those medias which are Arabic language media, there's, there's, there's a lot of coverage of what's going on in the, in the areas under the control of the government.
[Other language spoken]
One of the constraints is that there's, there is very little media that goes into the areas under Sana and 70% of the population is in international media FO 2 or, or regional media, 70% of the population is there.
And the, you know, in the last two years, I couldn't think of maybe one or two international media that's been there.
And so the, we as humanitarian organisations constantly speaking out about the, the situation.
We, we raise it every, every every month.
The Security Council Ocho does a briefing on the humanitarian situation in in Yemen, but the the media is the international media is not engaging with Yemen in the way that I think it's is needed now.
Obviously on our side as well.
We need to to reach out more and discuss that.
So yes, it's definitely a challenge the, but obviously it's not just the media with the member states who support the humanitarian response.
We are looking to increase engagement with, with them.
Then a lot of the responses for many years been funded by Western governments.
I think we could describe them, but obviously they're financially under pressure and the budget's coming down.
The, the, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, other girl from member states have, have been generous, but we're hoping that an engagement with them will see greater attention to this.
On the humanitarian side, there's obviously a lot of political attention.
So that's the, that, that's sort of the, the matter of attention.
The, as I said earlier, 28% of the funding not good, about 688,000,000 last year was the, the amount received.
The we obviously the beginning of the year.
So I don't know how things are going to, to play out in, in this year.
But given the environment, I am very concerned.
I've, I've spoken to Tom Fletcher, the emergency relief coordinator Yemen is, is one of his priorities.
It's on, it's on his list and he's bringing that to Member States and to the International Agency standing Committee.
So we, we're doing what we can to, to bring greater attention to this.
But it's, you know, it's, it's going to be needed.
And my fear is that we won't hear about it until the mortality and the morbidity significantly increases in, in in this next year.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
Other questions in the room looking John Zaracostas, Francois Catter and The Lancet.
[Other language spoken]
I was wondering if you could bring us up to speed from the retreat.
What's the message that you got from the Secretary General concerning Yemen and what are your top three priorities given the limited funds coming in?
Where are you going to focus?
There's a risk of famine and the situation in the health front is dire.
So what are the top 3 priorities in the first six months for you?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
So the, the, the the secretary general is personally engaged on, on, on Yemen and on on the following up on the political situation in both in all parts of the country, on the, on the humanitarian file and personally involved in the, in the matter of the detention of our colleagues.
He was he travelled to to Muscat, Oman in last month in order to engage with the Sultan to bring out the the conditions and the the fact that our colleagues were detained and how that was an impediment to the United Nations being able to work in, in in the north.
He, he's deeply concerned about the, the political situation and you'll have seen his statements on that, but also the statements of Hans Grunberg, the, the, the, the special envoy and obviously in tandem with the emergency relief coordinator, he, and given his, his past as head of one of the major UN humanitarian agencies, he's deeply worried about that too.
So the SG is following this in, in detail.
The, in terms of the, the priorities, it is the priorities for, well, for Yemenis firstly, then it's the priorities for the humanitarian country team.
The, the, the focus has to be on, on public health and malnutrition as well as food insecurity.
[Other language spoken]
Because whilst the, the food insecurity situation is deeply worrying and we're expecting a degradation, it is not food insecurity that kills.
Food insecurity contributes to malnutrition, but as does poor access to clean water, as does lack of access to, to healthcare services.
And when those things are going, as does socio economic conditions, when those things combine together, you get malnutrition.
And then that's where you see the mortality and morbidity, particularly affecting the under fives and particularly children under the age of 2.
So that's, so the, the, the, the nutrition, public health, particularly at the Primary Health care level and food insecurity come together and, and are, are our priorities across the country.
Thank you very much.
Yes, Boris.
Yes, Boris Engelsen, a local freelancer, you you'd to the attitude, the lack of information conveyed by the media in the current world, in crisis situations are places where we think, we feel we understand what's going on.
In Gaza, most people think, rightly or wrongly, they understand what's going on.
In some other places, it's a bit they are not sure who are the good and bad guy.
But in some countries like Yemen, most people even inform people don't really understand what's going on.
So among ten people you report on Yemen or you address about Yemen, how many know understand what's going on?
Well, you know, Yemen is, I've been working in humanitarian conflicts and emergencies for non-stop for, for, for 20 years, not as long as some colleagues, but you know, it's, it's of time.
And with Yemen is without doubt the most complicated and complexed humanitarian situation I've ever worked in.
And I would generally say if anybody tells you they know what's going on in Yemen, they are, well, they're, I think they're bluffing.
So, so I think 0 out of 10 people should know what's going on in Yemen because it is an, you know, it is an extraordinarily complicated situation.
I've, you know, I've just seen the last month in, in Aden, we went through a situation where you have the government in Yemen in charge.
Then over 48 hours, the Southern Transitional Council took over the the whole of the government of Yemen areas in including areas which they've not been in forever.
And then four weeks later they had announced that in in Riyadh that they had dissolved.
And now the government in Yemen has re taken those those areas.
But at the same time we got demonstrations in in Ireland saying that no, we're we're not we're still there.
So it is A, and then, you know, that's just in the government in Yemen areas without looking @of.
So it is an extraordinarily complex situation.
And of course that's the challenge for, for humanitarians, the more complicated the, the situation, the, the tendency is from member States and, and, and for people who could give, give money is to go, Oh no, it's just too complicated.
We, we don't understand it and there isn't a simple narrative.
And therefore without that simple narrative, more difficult to raise funds.
The reality is the simple narrative is children are dying and it's going to get worse.
For 10 years, the UN and humanitarian organisations were able to improve mortality and improve morbidity, but with the conjunction that we're seeing this year, that's not going to be the case.
That is the simple story and that that everybody needs to understand.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much, junior.
Let me go to the platform.
We have got Nikamim Bruce, The New York Times.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you for taking my question.
In the last couple of years, it looked as if there might be some kind of patching up or agreement between Sanaa and Saudi Arabia.
We've kind of lost sight of where that is.
And I'm just wondering if you see any progress on that particular front.
And secondly, you've alluded to the problems with the STC.
What, what is the state of that sort of particular conflict?
How bad, how much is that impacting on humanitarian assistance?
And to what extent is there a sort of a homegrown desire for separation in the South or is that something that's been driven by external partners parties?
[Other language spoken]
Thank, thank you very much.
Nick, I, I'll, I'll not answer the majority of your, your question because it, it is an area of goes into the mandate of, of Hans Grunberg on the political side as special envoy, which he is uniquely placed to talk about.
I work on the humanitarian and the and the development file.
So I'll sort of stick to my area of knowledge and, and, and competence.
What I can say is that the, the, the the parties to the conflict have not been able to find a solution is what's driving the, the increase from 19,000,000 to 21.519 point 5 million to 21 million people in need this year.
It's not active fighting, it's not massive displacement, it's not bombing, but it is the collapse of the economy.
It is the, the ports which have been highly damaged in the, in the last year.
It is the, the fact that the airports are no longer operating.
It is the, it is the, the, the, the, the disruption of essential services, health, education, etcetera, of all those things which create this worsening situation.
So in the absence of political solutions, it is impossible for the humanitarians to deal this.
We can, we can take the edge off it, we can save lives, but we do not, we cannot stop the underlying dynamic which is creating all these needs.
Then in terms of the the consequences of the in the Government of Yemen area, I mean the.
There are, you know, I've, I've travelled all over Yemen.
There's, there's many parts of Yemen that you would sort of go to and you would think that you're in a country that was, had development challenges, but not a conflict.
The the, the difficulty of the, of the, of the political challenges which the country is going through at the moment means that instead of focusing on development, instead of governments and local authorities being able to think, focus on generally improving electricity supplies, including or access to to jobs, getting Yemenis employed, improving the healthcare system.
And instead of that, the, the leaders of the country in, in all parties are focused on the, the understandably are focused on the political challenges.
They, although there have been announcements of that they will be working, supported by member states, particularly Saudi Arabia to, to address that.
But you know, obviously it takes your eye off the ball.
So the the political crisis has an impact on, or the political challenges, I should say, has an immediate and direct impact on, on the lack of development and therefore feeds into increased humanitarian needs unnecessarily.
[Other language spoken]
Very much, Julian.
Yes, Robin, follow up.
[Other language spoken]
The the negotiations to free UN colleagues who are being detained, do you see any glimmers of light in that process?
And do you see any, any signs that the parties to the conflict understand the level of damage that does to EU NS ability to be able to deliver humanitarian aid in the field?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And yeah, I talk to the families a lot, as do the representatives.
It's very, it's terrible for them.
Some families haven't seen their their loved ones in five years.
The you know, they don't know the conditions of the, of the detention.
They don't know where they are.
They don't know if they're going to be sentenced to death in the, in the coming days.
And so, you know, the families are, are suffering and, and, and it's more broadly, it's terrifying across all humanitarians who, who live in the north or work in the north because you, you know, you just don't know what's going to happen to you next.
And you don't understand why.
Why did this happen?
You know, we've been working in the north for 10 years.
I mean, we've been working in Yemen since the 60s, but we've been working in, in, in, since the beginning, the conflict.
We've been there, we've been operating, we've been, you know, doing a huge contribution.
And then suddenly in the last couple of years, this, this breakdown and inexplicably so.
And so that is a terrifying effect on humanitarian workers more generally, which in of itself is debilitating.
Obviously the the detention of our colleagues comes within a broader context.
There's also INGO staff who've been detained staff working for certain embassies have, have, have been detained activists, people engaged in, in politics in, in different ways, people from the government, nobody talks about them, nobody talks about them and who's paying for their salaries, you know, So the, you know, the detention is a much broader challenge in, across, across society in there are some detentions in, in the, in the government of Yemen areas, but nothing of the scale of, of what we see in, in the north.
So it is a it's a challenge directly for the humanitarians, but it's more broadly a challenge for for Yemeni society that I, I believe from a human rights perspective merits much more attention.
Now we're the, as I noted earlier, the secretary general's met the Sultan.
He's raised this with the government of Saudi Arabia, with many of the government of Iran, with many of the member states of the region himself personally at all levels.
Hans Greenberger has has also done this.
He's constantly circling around the the region and we have a a colleague who's working purely on the detainee file who, who is engaged.
So member states understand the challenge, they express sympathy, but there are so many concerns that they they find it difficult to apply the appropriate engagement to address this.
And of course the the other thing is that, you know, we've seen the situation in Yemen.
It's a very, it's an intractable situation.
If you look at what happened on the Red Sea and the other elements of the conflict, Member states have attempted to put pressure on the authorities in Sandra and it's been, it's been very challenging.
So, you know, it's a really difficult issue to resolve.
We need to keep at it for many years to come and we do need great support from member States.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much, Julian.
Let me see if there are other questions for you in the room.
John, is that a hand?
No, it's a pen, but it's a hand.
[Other language spoken]
Yes, coming back to the link between access to clean water and disease, as you very well know, quite a few of the water facilities were bombed.
How many of these have been repaired producing clean water in urban and other areas?
So what percentage of the population would be roughly having access to clean water?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
The, the, the broader challenge for access to clean water isn't it's not so much physical damage caused by by bombing campaigns because the the access to water in in Yemen is, is very dispersed.
You know, you have bore whales every couple of 100 metres in certain areas.
The the the there's two challenges that that Yemen faces on on on water, and this is particularly the no all of Yemen.
1 is the with an increase in population, climate change and a population which uses much water per cap, more water per capita than ever was done in the past.
The the the water table in most of the areas of urban, most of the major cities is is dropping.
So you know, for example, in sauna, some some bore whales go down to 1000 metres and and more so so you have a huge challenge about access to water because of those main the sort of the underlying situation nothing to do with the the conflict.
Now if you've got these, if you, you know it's not a country in certain parts of in other countries where the water is available at 510 metres below below ground level or, or surface water.
So what that means is that you need power.
You need power in order to be be able to bring up the water.
And that means you need diesel or you need big solar systems.
And the economic challenge is the, the damage to the harbour.
And, and then obviously the, the, the pause on in all the rather the, the fact that the UN is unable to work on in increasing the availability of, of solar and increasing the, the capacity diesel delivering diesel in order to bring out the water is, is, is producing a massive constraint on on water.
So that's another, another huge challenge for all parts of the country, but particularly particularly the North.
We're looking as humanitarians, we're looking to see how that's going to be resolved, but it's deeply challenging.
[Other language spoken]
And we have a request for follow up from The New York Times.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
the United States made it clear when it was producing $2 billion for Tom Fletcher the other day that Yemen was not on their list of potential beneficiaries.
I'm wondering what's your sense of, of who are from the discussions you've had so far on, on this year's appeals, who is lining up to produce support?
Is that mainly going to be for the UN system, at least from European countries?
Alternatively, is the reality that the people most likely to provide funding for projects in Yemen are basically shunning the UN system and are doing it bilaterally?
[Other language spoken]
So the, but I, I think you know, without wanting to throw flowers at Tom, the, the emergency relief coordinator, I think the, the, the negotiation of the 2 billion for pool funds is an extraordinary achievement and, and demonstrates a, a trust in, in the UN and demonstrates a, a trust in the mechanism of pool funds.
So that, that says to me that doesn't say shunning, you know, you don't give $2 billion to somebody that you're shunning.
Or if you do, I'd like to be shunned as well.
So, you know, there's, there's, there's clearly an, an engagement from the States.
But at the same time, you can understand why the United States would would, would have great difficulty in, in providing humanitarian funds for for Yemen specifically.
Obviously there there's been, you know, last year there was an active conflict.
I'm not quite sure what the appropriate designation of it is, but you know the answer.
Allah was firing missiles at yeah, U.S.
Navy and the US Navy was firing back.
And there are employees of the United States who are, are detained.
So in in those circumstances, it's extraordinary that the United States did provide as much assistance as they did.
And for many years, the US was the biggest, biggest donor to the humanitarian response in Yemen.
That's no longer the case.
I am hoping that at least in parts of Yemen, the, the US government will come back to, to to fund.
And that's important because they are worldwide the OR have been worldwide the biggest humanitarian donor, the top three donors in in Yemen in in recent years have been the United States, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the the United Kingdom.
The I, I am hoping that we will see even more support from the, the, the Gulf countries.
Yemen, A humanitarian crisis in Yemen is a, is a risk to the Arabian Peninsula.
[Other language spoken]
And so, and we've seen that in the past with particularly with cholera.
So as a as a community worldwide, we need to provide this humanitarian support.
But I'm particularly hoping that we will get great support from the Gulf member states.
And I've just recently been invited to an event in Riyadh to contribute to a discussion on the Global humanitarian overview, precisely because King Salmon Relief was so interested in in in the situation of of Yemen.
So there is a great deal of interest there and I think we need to work above all with those member states.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I think this.
Oh, John, sorry, I didn't see.
Yeah, I can't see very well.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
A final question coming back to the funding issue, roughly what percentage of the funds donated by member states are earmarked and how many how many give you more space to work Thank you.
In other words, non earmarked well in, in, in a highly charged complex emergency like like Yemen, the the most funds are, are directed either thematically, geographically or or there are various constraints and limitations to ensure that the, the, the money is spent in certain ways, right?
So there's, there's very little in the way of funding provided to UN agencies or NGOs or where you you can broadly spend it as you will, right.
So I don't know if you describe how you precisely describe that as a marked or not.
We do have a Yemen humanitarian fund which has been very successful.
66% of the funding goes to local NGOs, 33% goes to women LED organisations and those those funds are always allocated on the highest, highest needs.
And then and I think that links to the success of Tom in this allocation towards the pool fund.
You know, pool funds are an excellent instrument precisely to deal with this, you know, addressing the most pressing needs in any particular country.
We're we're at the end, right, yes, we are.
Can I say one thing?
Of course you can.
[Other language spoken]
So I just wanted to to, you know, appreciate the engagement and the importance of the press corps and engaging on this this subject.
You know, the we need to be looking great a deal in on what's going on in Yemen.
I also wanted to to note that the some of excellent work provided by local analysts and and regional analysts.
I won't embarrass them by giving out their name today's, but there's some there's some really solid work that's been done by, by those experts, but it's not being it's not finding its way through to a broader a broader public.
And, you know, I really hope that we together we can get through the message about the, the great risks to to Yemenis in this coming year and the the the fact that we can do together, we can prevent an increase in mortality and morbidity, but it will be very challenging.
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I really hope our colleagues, journalists here and on the platform, which are quite numerous.
We listen to your appeal and we really invite you to continue keeping us abreast whether you and thank you very much for coming and speaking to the journalist when you're visiting Geneva or with your colleagues in the field, John and and others that can intervene at our press briefings from afar.
So we really keep want to keep the Yemen dire situation on the the attention of the of the journalist.
So thank you very much to everyone for following this press conference.
Thanks to Julian for coming and talking to the Geneva press corps.
Have a nice day and a nice week and I'll see you tomorrow for the briefing.
Thank you, Mercy.