TThree weeks ago, Foreign Minister James Cleverly told me that, in the face of drastic cuts in the UK aid budget, Yemen would remain a priority country in the UK and the government would use all the strength of its efforts diplomatic to bring peace.
On Monday, those words sounded hollow when he announced that the UK was reducing humanitarian aid to Yemen by more than 50% compared to last year. As a result, a country that has already been devastated now faces the worst famine in decades and the prospect of lasting peace seems more distant than ever.
Yemen is experiencing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Since 2015, the country has been involved in a devastating civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead, including tens of thousands of civilians. Many millions more are dealing with the destruction of critical infrastructure, including hospitals and homes, internal displacement and a deepening economic crisis.
This prolonged and complex situation is only getting worse, with 80% of the population, including 12.4 million children, in need of humanitarian assistance. Despite this evident need, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) suggests that 3 million fewer Yemenis were receiving aid each month in late 2020 compared to the beginning of the year. Abeer Fowzi of IRC Yemen said “Yemenis have never faced so little support from the international community – or so many simultaneous challenges” before.
Today, the biggest threat facing Yemenis is severe hunger. Mark Lowcock, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, warned that 50,000 Yemenis are already starving and 400,000 under 5 are at risk of starvation in the coming weeks.
The UN was seeking nearly $ 4 billion (£ 2.9 billion) of humanitarian funding to prevent immediate disasters and help 16 million people across Yemen to survive. The UK was expected to maintain previous aid levels at around £ 200 million last year. Lowcock said anything less would be catastrophic for the country’s peace prospects, making the UK’s £ 87 million commitment even more tragic.
I was warned in January that British ambassadors in developing countries were being asked to cut their aid budgets by 50 to 70%. When I raised this with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, he said he did not recognize the figure. Monday’s cut to aid Yemen confirms my worst fears – that these numbers are true and not even those facing the most desperate humanitarian crises are safe.
There remains a shocking lack of transparency by the government as to where the broadest cuts in aid will fall and I am not aware of any consultation with NGOs or partners in the global south to minimize its impact. I heard about the next cuts in projects that seek to empower girls to know their rights and report cases of violence, while alerts were also made about programs that deal with nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, and sexual and reproductive health. The analysis suggests that, due to government cuts, 5.3 million fewer children per year will be immunized and 4.5 million fewer will have a decent education.
While other G7 countries are increasing their aid commitments, the United Kingdom, despite hosting the G7 summit later this year, is not doing the same. In Yemen, the United Kingdom could have chosen to help prevent catastrophic hunger and build the foundations for peace, but instead decided to turn the corner. The often repeated words are that Yemenis are not starving, in fact they are starving.
It is even more perverse that the government made this decision by maintaining arms exports to countries linked to the civil war. In this regard, they ignored calls from Labor, their own backbenches and President Joe Biden who, in his first foreign policy speech, announced the end of all arms sales relevant to the war in Yemen.
There is a broader concern, however: these decisions are setting a worrying precedent for what “global Britain” – still largely undefined – really means. Reducing support for Yemen not only puts us dangerously out of step with our allies, but we are consciously abandoning millions on the brink of famine. Is this really what global Britain should be?