Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what plans the Government has to increase the amount of humanitarian aid for Yemen in 2019.

On 24 February, the Prime Minister announced that the UK will provide an additional £200 million in response to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen for the next financial year (2019/2020). This was the third largest amount pledged at the UN 2019 Yemen Pledging conference and brings the total UK commitment to Yemen to £770 million since the conflict began in 2015.

We are encouraging other large donors to disburse promptly and are confident that if this happens the UN and NGOs will be able to deliver a strong humanitarian response. The Geneva Pledging Conference in February of this year saw $2.6 billion pledged, approximately 20% of which has been disbursed to date.

The UK has brought forward funding to cover urgent UN funding gaps and will have disbursed over half of our £200 million funding by the beginning of June. We will release our remaining funds promptly and in line with our partners’ funding requirements.