International Development Committee
Oral evidence: The Humanitarian Situation in Yemen, HC 553
Tuesday 14 July 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 July 2026.
Watch the meeting
Members present: Sarah Champion (Chair); Janet Daby; Tracy Gilbert; Monica Harding; Alicia Kearns; Noah Law; Brian Mathew; David Mundell; James Naish; Sam Rushworth; David Taylor.
Questions 1 - 63
Witnesses
I: El-Khidir Daloum, Country Director, Yemen, World Food Programme; Konstantinos Psykakos, Deputy Programme Manager Cell 5, Médecins Sans Frontières; Noha Yehya, Gender and gender-based violence specialist.
II: Dr Richard Barltrop, Visiting Senior Fellow, Middle East Centre, London School of Economics (LSE); Helen Lackner, Associate, SOAS Middle East Institute.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– [Add names of witnesses and hyperlink to submissions]
Witnesses: El-Khidir Daloum, Konstantinos Psykakos and Noha Yehya.
Q1 Chair: This is the International Development Committee’s one-off session on the humanitarian situation in Yemen. As a Committee, we repeatedly come back to this topic because the humanitarian situation out there is truly horrendous. It has been going on for over a decade, and unfortunately it gets very little attention. That is partly the short attention span of the media. They like a crisis and this is an ongoing protracted disaster. It is largely hidden, as this session will show, because it is very difficult to get current information into the public domain. All that said, we are very fortunate to be joined by a number of witnesses today who we will separate into two panels. Mr El-Khidir is here in the room but our other witnesses are virtual. Mr El-Khidir, could I ask you to introduce yourself and your organisation, please?
El-Khidir Daloum: Thank you very much, honourable members of the International Development Committee. It is a great honour and privilege to stand in front of you today. I am the representative of World Food Programme in Yemen. We have been working in Yemen for over three decades and are honoured to have a long-lasting partnership with the UK Government and people. I am really grateful to be here with you.
Q2 Chair: For those people who do not know, could you explain what the World Food Programme is and what it does around the world?
El-Khidir Daloum: The World Food Programme was established in 1963 and stands to achieve zero hunger. The sustainable development goals have identified the second goal of achieving zero hunger and WFP stands for that. WFP operates in 84 countries. It saves lives. Saving lives is basically a humanitarian response and we work on survival, feeding people and addressing hunger to prevent the worst outcomes. At the same time, we work on the development side; we call it changing life. It is about addressing the root causes of hunger. We translate those root causes into positive programmes such as resilience, food systems, and school meals, and so on.
In addition, WFP works in enabling the humanitarian space, especially agencies, to deliver humanitarian response in hard-to-reach areas where access is limited. WFP provides logistic support, such as the logistic cluster, when there is an on-surface demand for agencies that are not able to deliver. That is across the world. WFP is the leading agency trying to address most of the famines that happen in the world, which happen as a result of climate, conflict, or the outbreak of diseases. Those are the main reasons for famines and crisis.
I have to mention that, because of the volume of the humanitarian response, WFP is often perceived as only a humanitarian agency. Yes, we are the largest humanitarian agency in the world, but we also have a developmental side.
Q3 Chair: Are you part of the United Nations?
El-Khidir Daloum: Yes, we are part of the United Nations. In any country you will find agencies called resident and non-resident agencies. WFP continues to be a resident agency because it is operational and works deep in the field. You will find us in the capitals, but you will also find us closer to the people we serve.
Chair: WFP is one of the best values for money on public record; you are one of the leanest organisations. I have seen you on the ground and what you are able to do is remarkable. Thank you for everything that you and your colleagues do. We can now turn specifically to Yemen.
Q4 Janet Daby: What is the impact of food insecurity in the current conflict in Yemen?
El-Khidir Daloum: I want to start with the trajectory. In the last decade, Yemen has gone through a very challenging moment.
Until 2015, the World Food Programme’s developmental programme was the major component and humanitarian programme was the smaller one. As a result of conflict, we have reached a situation where 50% of the total population of Yemen is food insecure. That constitutes about 18.3 million people. Further, 3.5 million are acutely malnourished, 55% of children are chronically malnourished, and 5.2 million are internally displaced as a result or war or the climate crisis. It has affected boys and girls. About 3.2 million children of school age are currently out of school.
I started this role on 5 March this year. I have travelled in the southern part, under the control of the internationally recognised government, where I met the IDPs—internally displaced persons—and refugees, and people who are affected by climate and conflict. I have to say that it hit hard. Any conflict is hard for women, children, and the elderly. Those are the three categories that have been hit hard.
We have also marginalised communities in Yemen, called Muhamasheen in Arabic. Those Muhamasheen, or marginalised communities, have paid the largest price. I want to give you an example of what will happen to the household when hit by crisis. Whether this crisis is as a result of climate change, conflict, or outbreak, the first thing the household will do is cut meals. Three will go to two, and two will go to one. If one, it will go to the quality of the food they take. The quality is going to be compromised. As a result, malnutrition will happen. They will then try to borrow from their local community. Everyone will know what you have in terms of assets, so they will not give you more than the value of your assets. When you then go for the third strategy, which is to sell your assets, you will find that the terms of trade are not in your favour. You sell all your assets and are not able to pay your debts, so you will be indebted. When you reach this stage you have only two options; to stay in the land or to leave. If you stay, you will be malnourished and the whole issue of a declaration of famine could happen. Otherwise, you become an IDP. That is why, as a result of that push factor, there are 5.2 million IDPs. That is the situation in Yemen right now.
Q5 Janet Daby: That is quite shocking to hear and very concerning. In terms of the long-term impact of malnutrition and Yemen’s stability, how do you perceive its ability to recover and improve? What are your thoughts around that?
El-Khidir Daloum: One thing I have learned from my humanitarian work over the last 35 years—10 of them in the United Nations and 25 in international NGOs—is that you have to be optimistic in this sector. There is always hope. Yemen was not dependent on aid, especially humanitarian aid, until 2015. That will tell you the story that you focus on resilience, food systems, and the value chain. Yemen is rich in three food economy zones: agriculture, livestock, and fishery. If we work hard with support from the UK Government and others, and we have examples of WFP working in resilience, then all those food economy zones can turn around the lives of the people. We have operational research to show that whenever you invest $1 in resilience, it can save between $3 to $7 during times of emergency or shocks. These are examples of how Yemen can easily go through recovery programmes. We have a number of recovery programmes that have been successful and paid back in terms of turning the lives of the people around and created hope for marginalised groups.
Q6 Monica Harding: The rates of disability in Yemen seem to be very high as a population. Why is that?
El-Khidir Daloum: Disability in Yemen is sometimes the result of war. Some is the result of immunisation coverage being very low. We also have an issue of stunting. Recently I went from Yemen to the western coast and about 40% to 60% of kids were stunted. Stunting has a lasting effect, especially after the age of five but some nutritionists say after the age of two. It is either the conflict, the polio coverage not being as good as it should be—but that has now been improved—or it is the result of a chronic malnutrition situation, especially the stunting form of malnutrition.
Q7 David Mundell: Are there any resources or attempts to pursue food security initiatives to ensure that the Yemeni population can shift from this dependency model to a more self-sufficient model?
El-Khidir Daloum: Yes; this is not only WFP; there are other agencies. I can give an example from the World Food Programme. We worked with farmers in Mukalla in resilience—we call it resilience programmes—and we provide them with agricultural inputs and approaches to agriculture. We also engaged them in the value chain; how they can be in aggregation. A number of them come as associations. They then link them to the market, and they sell their commodities to the market. We have helped them to bring back almost 3,000 hectares of land. It is now active. My deputy was there recently. I was not in Mukalla, but my deputy was retained by Mukalla’s governors. They have reached this situation and we now would like to work in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. We are trying to work with a fishery association to bring them together and try to link them to the market. They are mainly producers but they are not linked to the market, which is the biggest issue. It is the transport, connection, and cold chain systems; all these things together.
Q8 David Mundell: What are the main barriers to tackling food insecurity? Have you just set out what you see as the main barriers to tackling it, outwith the conflict itself?
El-Khidir Daloum: The agriculture, livestock, and fishery food economy zones are the most vibrant food economy zones. In these zones, people should be well off. We need to ask ourselves why they are not well off. The main reason is that between the production, value chain, and the market there are many aggregators. They are not able to sell their products at the right time. For example, if they have fisheries they have no cold chain for it. If they have fruit and vegetables, they have no cold chain for it. If they produce milk, they cannot link to the market. That is one thing. The other is to group themselves into proper associations. They study the market and become one group. Instead of having many mediators between them and the consumers, you minimise the mediators and they can engage directly with consumers. The more they engage directly with consumers, they more they will be winners. The consumers will be winners. The economy in total will be a winner.
Q9 David Mundell: Do you think that is achievable?
El-Khidir Daloum: It is achievable because our experience in Mukalla has demonstrated it. To give you another example, we are working on something called home-grown school feeding. In the past, we have brought food from the UK, the United States, Australia, Canada, and different places and distributed it in the schools to attract more children. We have now introduced something called home-grown school feeding. If you are in agriculture, we link you with the agriculture food economy. Schools buy from local farmers instead of from outside. It is the same for livestock and the fisheries. We found that, once linked, it stimulates the local market. The UK Government gave us funding for cash transfers during the humanitarian assistance. We have a study that shows that when you are providing assistance in kind, it will stimulate in the local economy by only $1. For every $1 in cash, the local economy will be stimulated by between $1.7 and $2.5. It is a humanitarian response but it will have a lasting impact on the local economy.
Q10 David Mundell: You have essentially been talking about the southern part of Yemen and what is happening there. How or to what extent are you or others able to operate in the northern Houthi-controlled territories?
El-Khidir Daloum: As I stand in front of you, 38 out of 73 of my beloved colleagues are detained by the Houthis for doing the noble job of delivering humanitarian assistance to the Yemeni people, irrespective of where they are and under which authority they are controlled. That is the situation we are in.
I would like to say that we are not operational there. The Secretary-General took the decision about the UN post in the north for two reasons. First, it is because of the 73 detainees. Secondly, it is because of limited humanitarian space that respects international humanitarian laws and the humanitarian imperative. Having said that, World Food Programme and other humanitarians work with all people irrespective of where they are and who they are. It is not going to dictate our work for us. For the time being, we are in post.
The situation in the north is not good. I do not have a high level of confidence to speak about it because we do not have ground colleagues who can provide us with the data. Generally, when I talk about the 18.3 million we have information on, they are not only in the southern part of the country but are also in the northern part under the Houthi authorities.
Q11 David Mundell: Do you feel you have an accurate picture of the food insecurity position in the north?
El-Khidir Daloum: We have an estimate. The estimate talks about 18.3 million. Out of them, about 12 million are in the north. These remain estimates. As long as we are not operational, WFP cannot speak with authority on how bad the situation is in terms of malnutrition and food insecurity.
Q12 Chair: Mr El-Khidir, can I send my solidarity to your colleagues? Detaining international humanitarian workers is a clear violation of international law. I am disgusted that it is going on and deeply sorry for the individuals, their families, and the wider humanitarian family. I wonder if I could just pause and bring in Noha and Konstantinos. I know we have some problems with the connection. Konstantinos, can I ask you to introduce yourself and your organisation to us, please?
Konstantinos Psykakos: I work for Doctors Without Borders, Switzerland. One country we are operating in is Yemen, along with other colleagues of MSF in the country.
Q13 Chair: Noha, can you introduce yourself and your organisation to us, please?
Noha Yehya: I work as a gender and GBV specialist for a national NGO.
Q14 Tracy Gilbert: Can you tell me what unique challenges women and girls are facing today?
Noha Yehya: The problem in Yemen is that, in the south and the north, women are exposed to violence and used as a weapon.
One big problem women and girls in Yemen are facing is our laws and institutions. They give us no way to protect ourselves or to find safety. No law in the country bans discrimination against women. Marital rape is normalised and never considered a crime. Even getting a basic legal right such as inheritance is a battle for a woman in Yemen. To make it worse, there is adultery law in Yemen, or Zima law as we call it. If a woman who is exposed to rape tries to report or file a case against the rapist then she might be prosecuted for adultery unless she can prove that she was raped. This cannot happen in Yemen. If she is not imprisoned for adultery, she might be exposed to an honour killing. Under the laws in Yemen, if a male in the family kills his mother, sister, or daughter for adultery then it is only one year in prison or a fine. This exposes women to a lot of risks.
There is also a total lack of accountability everywhere in Yemen, north and south. It is kept alive by the mahram rule. It is more in the north than the south, but every woman who needs to travel needs mahram. It means that she needs to be accompanied by a male or get permission from a male to move from one place to another. This is a kind of violence because women who are exposed to domestic or gender-based violence cannot go and seek services. It is the same for service providers. Most service providers of specialised services for gender-based violence are women. If they cannot travel or move freely to service providers then services will be stopped and women will be exposed to more violence. There is also a stigma issue. Women cannot always speak out about violence or their exposure to violence by a male abuser because it is known and normalised. Even if a male is an abuser, he is also the protector. She cannot speak about this, otherwise she will be considered disobedient.
The north and south have different dynamics. When we look into the violence against women, it is hidden everywhere and is equally in the north and the south. In the north, we have a serious issue relating to the security of women. It is Zainabiyat, which is a female force. In the north, the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms documented between 1,400 and 1,654 cases of violence against women. There are also testimonies from prisoners who were recently freed from prison that say Zainabiyat facilitated all kinds of violence against the women in detention. Zainabiyat is the one monitoring women working in the fields of GBV, protection, and humanitarian fields in general.
None of our colleagues or researchers can even speak about gender-based violence. That is why some colleagues, who were supposed to be here today, could not join; they are based there where are different dynamics. In the south, there are armed groups that can do whatever they want to do to expose women to risk or violence. There is no clear mechanism or way to appeal for any support for women. It is also difficult because of the divided ministries and armed groups that are connected to the Government and different political parties. It is a bit chaotic in the south.
Q15 Chair: Could I bring you back to a point you made earlier? You spoke about Zainabiyat. Could you tell us what and who that is?
Noha Yehya: It is a female force.
Chair: A female force?
Noha Yehya: Yes, it is a female police force formulated by the Houthis in order to monitor and detain women because of the culture. Men cannot touch or monitor women so they created this group in order to control women and make sure they keep their mouths shut. They cannot speak because they are reachable and can be detained.
Q16 Chair: You said in prisons, the Zainabiyat were carrying out violence against women?
Noha Yehya: Yes. They facilitate the process by all kinds of violence you can imagine, which I prefer not to talk about.
Chair: Could we bring Konstantinos in to talk about it from a medical perspective?
Q17 Tracy Gilbert: If there is anything to add, that would be great. Are you aware of any protective funding or dedicated programmes designed to aid the needs of women and girls facing these circumstances?
Konstantinos Psykakos: Before starting on dedicated programmes to address those needs, I have to complement what my colleague Noha has said. In the north, especially where women are already deprived of access to health care and with the pause over the past month that the administration had to face in the north of Yemen, those limited services are already extremely scarce. They are already hindered and access to them puts them more at risk as we speak. Where you had a network of PHCCs that would be able to screen and identify women at risk and refer them to appropriate secondary health facilities for support and to provide services, they are now even scarcer. Women already have barriers and issues to access at a local level, let alone when they have to cover further distances to reach that access to care. Keep in mind the context; the restrictions are many. A year or so ago, we were relying on other partners in the vicinity to provide those needed services. Today, we are very worried and raised the alarm that we might not see the majority of those cases access our facilities or the care they need for the matter at hand.
Q18 Tracy Gilbert: Are you aware of any reserve funding or any projects that are trying to exist in either the north or the south?
Konstantinos Psykakos: As my colleague has already said, the north and the south have a different reality. In the south, while you have the availability of funds, it is more about feasibility and implementation on the ground. To what extent the efficiency of it happens and is applied. In the north, we are facing a more challenging environment where restrictions and barriers exist for different regions. Funding has been scarce but, even if it is available, it needs help and support to be implemented on the ground. We can elaborate further on this specific point.
Q19 Chair: While I was researching for this session, I was shocked to discover that three women are dying in pregnancy or delivery daily, which in June of this year was the highest maternal mortality rate in the Arab region. Are there any specific programmes to encourage training and the support of midwives and doctors specifically around sexual and reproductive health rights?
Konstantinos Psykakos: On that matter, I can tell you that there were a lot of activities at a primary healthcare level that would engage with the communities, through the modalities of the Ministry of Public Health and Population, to train TBAs in the traditional delivery system of the community in Yemen. We were trying to train the communities to refer to the PHCC for stabilisation and treatment if possible, or at least timely referral to a secondary healthcare facility where antenatal care could be followed, when they identify early complications.
You have already mentioned the 2025 numbers. Alarmingly, in 2026, we have a different problem that insinuates the situation has been exacerbated on its own. We do not see as many cases anymore. This has led to the conclusion that, if the trend continues, women have lost access because the support to the primary healthcare level has been reduced drastically due to the UN pause and other reasons.
Those women do not have the means to access secondary health facilities. Of the ones we received in 2025, 40% of cases were late arrivals to the hospital hence complicated cases. If there was a system in place, we would be able to treat them earlier and with fewer complications.
I can share this experience myself because I was in Ad-Dahi, Hudaydah two weeks ago. I was visiting one of the primary healthcare centres we are supporting to refer to another hospital in Hudaydah, Al-Qanawis. It offers maternal care and sexual and reproductive health facilities. The team mentioned that in 2025 they saw cases referred to Al-Qanawis, but until June 2026 they have seen far less cases. I do not think we are in a situation where we have trained the communities enough to deal with complications at local level with the means that they have. Those women have lost access, or it has been severely hindered and probably will be hindered further in the future the more we progress in this timeline.
Chair: That is chilling.
Q20 Janet Daby: Noha, I was thinking about female children, teenagers, and young women in terms of their mental health. What protections, if any, are in place for them?
Noha Yehya: Do you mean services for them?
Janet Daby: Yes.
Noha Yehya: Since the war started, the percentage of early marriages has increased sharply. Girls less than 18 years old are getting married or getting pregnant before they are ready. This has increased mortality among the children and exposed their health to a lot of risks.
UNFPA, through national NGOs, is running some health facilities. Due to the pause in the north and a lack of funds, almost 70% of these protection or health services have been shut down, which means women are now left behind. They cannot seek services. They cannot access case management, psycho-social support through the protection centres or safe spaces, and they cannot get the health services needed. They are exposed to unsafe abortions and childbirth, which can cause a lot of issues for them. This is one of the biggest challenges that we are facing; many services have been shut down or are on the edge of being shut down.
UNFPA is trying. It asked for $71 million this year to ensure that services could be sustained and continued. Unfortunately, up to now, only $9 million has been received and used by the partners for the implementation of sustaining some health facilities and safe spaces. Out of 103 safe spaces in the north, now only eight are operating. You can see the variance and the massive need.
Q21 Brian Mathew: Konstantinos, I want to take it to a higher level now but want you to dig down. I will ask you three questions in one. What is the current state of healthcare in Yemen? How does MSF meet those needs? What are the long-term implications of those needs not being addressed?
Konstantinos Psykakos: What is the status of the current health state of Yemen? In north and south, we have different situations and the same in parallel. What do I mean? In Yemen, people are in need in the north and south. The Ministry of Public Health and Population and PHCC levels are in need of support, technical supervision, and more knowledge on the ground to support them in moving forward and addressing those needs. The difference is that you have more resources available in the south compared to the north, as in the past year more funds have been concentrated in the south rather than the north. That is the big difference. It is the same needs but different. The south has the funds, tools, and NGOs to operate and move ahead with whatever needs to be addressed at a health level. The north has been defunded and isolated. Its needs are still the same though and will accelerate in the months or years to come. That is what we anticipate as of today.
To connect the first point with the third point: what do we foresee in the long term if those needs remain unattained? In any given country where the health needs of the population remain unattained, we do not expect this part of the population of the country to be able to recover themselves or enter any trajectory other than one of prolonged humanitarian disaster need or the prolonged management of outbreaks. There are no more outbreaks; it is a regularised situation that we are managing week after week to address those needs but without being able to outpace the curve. When it comes to the north, what we at MSF are trying to do is keep a modus operandi that can reflect the needs of the population in a versatile way and address outbreaks and emergency responses because the humanitarian landscape has changed.
Many NGOs were able to collaborate and co-ordinate their responses before. We now need to keep a focus on how we can better address the needs of areas, keeping in mind that we have already reached our maximum capacity in terms of operations over the past years. Our further growth is not a matter of financial support but it is a matter of the feasibility of having a wider operation.
We are collaborating with ICRC—International Committee of the Red Cross, the other actor in the north of the country—to be able to have maximum efficiency and not overlap in geographical areas. For the south, we are attending to different health needs in some areas because we have activities and programmes. Besides focusing on malnutrition or paediatrics, we are also focusing on activities for the migration population that crosses from the Horn of Africa to the south of Yemen to reach the rest of the Arabic Peninsula. That is another population in need; it is not a Yemeni population but they have needs.
In the meantime, in the same modality, we are trying to engage with other actors to avoid the duplication of activities and to maximise the geographical coverage.
Q22 Noah Law: The needs you have described persist at a time of global aid cuts. To what extent are you confident in your own organisation’s funding in the years ahead?
Konstantinos Psykakos: That is the question. If I had the answer today, I would be able to organise my operations for the next five years. Every year dictates the next one. Today, in the north, you have a different situation. It is not only the funding cuts that are global. We experience it in every country; it is not only a reality in Yemen itself.
What we see in the north of Yemen is that it is not only the global funding cuts; it is also that decisions have been taken to restrict any little funds that might have remained. If there is any willingness for those funds to be injected in the north, there is no facilitation for those funds to find their way north. For MSF or ICRC, we can navigate things such as a lack of access for UNHAS flights and importation, and flagging a terrorist organisation of Ansar Allah, the de facto authorities, to deliver activities and services to the people of the north, but other NGOs might not have the same capacity. It might create an activity of fear about operating in the north. It is not only a matter of global funding cuts that we see less services on its own, we see other effects and additional pressures coming to the northern part. In the south, it is as we said but the north and the south share different realities in some ways.
Q23 Noah Law: Noha, has your organisation specifically been hit by UK aid cuts?
Noha Yehya: Of course. My organisation is one of the biggest organisations providing gender-based violence and health services for women and girls in Yemen. We are one of the biggest recipients from UNFPA and a few other donors. With the UK cutting the fund, 70% of our services have been shut down including health services or safe spaces for women and girls. It means that women cannot reach these services and the consequences will last for a generation. Women are exposed to psychosocial stress and violence, which will be passed to their children. It will increase poverty and the consequences will be difficult. Cutting the fund now will not stop violence; it will only stop the help for women in Yemen. That is what is going on now.
We are trying with our resources to downsize the interventions or services, but that means we have more than 6,500 women on the waiting list. In the north, 2,300 are on the waiting list for safe spaces and to get some psychosocial support. This is the only door open for women seeking services; if we shut it down, we will face a lot of consequences. One is structured violence, which will not be easy to address later. We are destroying the structure of the community by leaving women exposed to this violence and not providing any support for them. Girls will be deprived of schools. Poverty will add stress to women and their families, which will increase domestic violence. It is a cycle. If we do not find a way to restore the services, we are destroying a community and we will not be able to fix it easily.
Noah Law: That is incredibly disturbing to hear.
Chair: Noha, it sounds like you are describing hell and it is getting worse. I hope that the international community hears what you are saying and a solution is negotiated fast because it takes away future potential—
Noha Yehya: Can I add something? The international community, by cutting funding, is adding another kind of violence against women in Yemen, especially in the north. We are punishing them for being in places where the Houthis are. We do not give them money or services because they are there. It is heartbreaking and, I am sorry to say, unhumanitarian.
Chair: I agree.
Q24 Noah Law: Can I make a quick clarification, please? How much of what you have described is about cuts versus the restrictions that Konstantinos referred to earlier?
Noha Yehya: There is a restriction of access but, for the national NGOs, we have our own way to provide services for women. We are an experienced organisation and we have been there for decades. We are using informal trust and personal relationships to ensure that we have access to women and provide services in any way. We are always sensitive to the situation and know how to reach women. Restrictions are difficult; they take time and expose our team to risk. Our team and national teams working in humanitarian areas, especially in GBV, are exposing themselves to risk at a level no humanitarian in any other country would accept. We do not have any protection from the state or humanitarian actors. We do not even have policies to protect our staff. We are implementing partners. Not all donors or organisations can provide us with this kind of protection. We know our ways. For years, we have been working with restrictions, but the restrictions do not mean that we will not find a way to do our job.
Q25 Sam Rushworth: Can I ask one question that is off script? Noha, thank you for talking with such candour about some really challenging situations people are facing. You have talked about some services that are being provided to women to relieve suffering. Are there also any civil society level forms of resistance? To what extent is it possible for women to organise and challenge Government around their rights in this space?
Noha Yehya: It is not easy. It has exposed them to a different kind of risk. You can consider me an example. Because I was talking about so many issues in an online meeting, I am out of my country, under stress, away from my family, and cannot go back. This is the risk we are facing if we speak out, but it does not mean that women will stop speaking out. We will find a way. Things will change. We will keep negotiating. Despite all the problems that we are facing in this situation, we manage to negotiate with the Houthis. We find a way. For example, they do not want anyone to talk about GBV. We can talk about economic empowerment though; we can provide services for GBV. It is a matter of knowing the context, having the language to talk with Government and authorities, and the trust level between civil society and the authorities. It takes a long time to get approvals, but in the end we get the approvals.
Q26 Sam Rushworth: I want to change topic now and talk about humanitarian aid access. Would you mind setting out what you see as the main barriers to humanitarian aid in the area?
Noha Yehya: Humanitarian aid access?
Sam Rushworth: Yes.
Noha Yehya: In general or for women and girls?
Sam Rushworth: You can speak to both.
Noha Yehya: In general, there are different dynamics in the north and the south. In the north, we have the Houthis and we need a lot of approvals. They ask for details; sometimes they try to force us to provide the names of staff with their addresses and mobile numbers—private information—in order to give us permission to implement. We do not do it. It is a problem that might delay implementation of some activities in the field. As for physical movement, as I mentioned earlier, for access to women and girls we now need mahram. This is one of the biggest challenges. Women cannot move around to either get a service or provide a service unless she is accompanied by a man or gets written permission by a man so that she can move freely or provide services. At the country level for other humanitarian actors, they are usually requested to provide a list of the beneficiaries, which is against humanitarian principles. No one can provide this information. There are also sensitive areas in Yemen, both in the north and the south. They can give you permission to work there, but you will be monitored. You can be forced to hire among your team people who you know are monitoring your work.
Sam Rushworth: If I understand it correctly, it is more difficult in the north than in the south but not impossible thinking about—
Noha Yehya: It is more difficult in the north definitely than the south. In the south, we have this armed group that is also doing these things, not in Aden but in some other governorates.
Q27 Sam Rushworth: It is not impossible to get humanitarian assistance in, but the effect of monitoring is severe. In terms of your organisation, how does that sense of being constantly monitored impact on you?
Noha Yehya: As I told you, we are all monitored. All the women who are working in protection and in GBV are monitored. It is a matter of how clear you are with the authorities. If you provide full details about what you are planning to do and necessary information then it may take longer. It might take a lot of mutual trust. It might need a lot of personal relations between some authorities in order to manage and get permissions to implement. It is not an easy way. It is the only way many national NGOs have to implement, but it does not mean that we compromise our humanitarian principles. It does not mean we are trying to work against these principles. As nationals, we always find a way to negotiate it. We are Yemenis at the end of the day, either north or south.
Q28 Noah Law: To come back briefly to the question of the UK’s impact, you mentioned that your programme is one of the main implementations of the FPA. To what extent do you believe the UK is responsible versus the broader global cuts to that programme? Does the UK have a very specific role and contribution that it is failing to meet?
Noha Yehya: The UK can advocate and provide funds to Yemen. It can support a diplomatic process for peacebuilding. It can do a lot. By providing funds to us, and I will talk about women and girls, you are helping the community in other ways. You are helping the peacebuilding process. Without women empowerment and the inclusion of women, we cannot talk. We cannot speak about genuine peacebuilding. There is no real peacebuilding. If we want real peacebuilding, we need women to be part of the transitional justice. If women are excluded because of this violence, cannot get services, be empowered or be included, then this will not help the stability of Yemen. The UK and FCDO can do a lot of things to support Yemen.
When we talk about localisation, the majority of organisations that work in the north are national NGOs. The UN was in both north and south, but it was forced to move its operation to the south. Only national NGOs have been left behind in the north, trying to fight and not collapse due to the lack of funding. Negotiating and returning operations of the UN to the north will help national NGOs respond. It will improve the funding situation in the north as well.
Q29 Noah Law: Are you mainly feeling that hit through the fact that UNFPA has been cut? Is there anything the UK can do to fill the void?
Noha Yehya: Help us to respond diplomatically and financially. This is what we need. If I say only financially, it does not mean there will be stability. We can work on stability diplomatically and financially.
Q30 Sam Rushworth: Noha, thank you very much for those responses. I am conscious of the time and what we still need to get through. This is a question that I am going to pose to our other participants. It is about the protections in place for aid workers. El-Khidir, could you share your experience of what protection is in place. Konstantinos, is there anything you would like to add on this topic before I come back to the Chair and move on?
El-Khidir Daloum: Thank you very much. Aid workers are at the front line and are always there. We are trying to do everything under our duty of care for the people who work and serve and the people we serve. We are very conscious of the transfer of risk, including to co-operating partners. Even when we are working with international or national NGOs or civil societies, we are trying to do our level best. However, whether they are non-state actors or a Government, we expect them to observe the humanitarian imperative and respect humanitarian law. That is a big issue. WFP and other agencies have lost lives on the front line.
You asked a question about the humanitarian space and monitoring: was it because of the cuts or because of access? I want to say that when access is not there, access is not there. Therefore, it will compromise the integrity of the response. WFP has four ways of monitoring. First, we do it ourselves in person. Secondly, we do it through mobiles. Thirdly, we do it through co-operating partners. Fourthly, we do it through third party monitors such as private companies. On the funding side, Yemen is placed at number four on the hot spot map in terms of those affected. The funding has been affected severely. In 2025, WFP reached $8 million. This year we have done what I call a brutal prioritisation to go for $3.4 million.
Q31 Sam Rushworth: You have gone from $8 million to $3.4 million?
El-Khidir Daloum: We have gone from $8 million to $3.4 million.
Q32 Sam Rushworth: Where was that funding coming from?
El-Khidir Daloum: Of the $3.4 million we are speaking about right now, we have only reached $2 million. The US has done a bigger cut. Last year, we had $54 million from the UK, this year we had only $17 million from the UK. I have to commend your team. Your ambassador and the FCDO team tried to leverage their funding with the Kuwaitis and the Saudis. They tried to ask, if the UK put this amount of money in then how much would they put ahead of it? I will appeal to the Committee. If we do not secure £118 million for food security and monetary relief by the end of this year, we will not be able to provide services in the south. I am talking about the south where we have access. Access is not an issue for us.
Q33 Sam Rushworth: You do not have access in the north, is that right?
El-Khidir Daloum: No. We have access for every place in the south except for three places, which are hot spots between the Houthis and the IRG, the internationally recognised government.
In the north, as I mentioned earlier, there are two reasons. One is the detainees and the other is the humanitarian imperative. Our offices and assets have been taken; those humanitarian imperatives are not there. If those issues are addressed, we are more than happy to go back to the north and respond to their needs. As I mentioned, needs are needs for us. No matter who they are, we will respond to them. The situation in the north is not conducive enough for us to go there and respond.
Q34 Sam Rushworth: Can I quickly bring Konstantinos in before we finish this section? Briefly, is Médecins Sans Frontières everywhere in Yemen? What barriers and protections do you have in place?
Konstantinos Psykakos: I will not stretch my answer too much because it is what my colleague Noha has already said. It is engagement with the authorities, local actors, and communities, and being clear on what we do, what we deliver, and what the purpose of that delivery is in terms of services towards the people. That brings mitigation to the risk, if there is a risk of exposure. If we want to talk about barriers of protection, it brings a barrier of protection.
Access is easier in the south as it has different ways and environments in terms of engagement strategy with authorities, non-state groups, and so on. It always brings the safety you need and the guarantees on the ground.
When it comes to the north, it is a complex operating environment. It is not being treated as an excuse to withdraw or not to deliver services on the ground. We need to remember that these discussions over barriers and issues of access affect people on the ground and patients who are not always related to those discussions. They are being affected, and they will keep being affected.
MSF is operating in only 10 different governorates in the north. I am not saying operating in the north is easy and I do not want to tone down any of the issues we have discussed so far, but with international teams and national colleagues it is not impossible. It is still feasible. If we ask other operating partners in the north, they will tell you the same. It is not easy. Is it feasible? Yes. Can we keep doing it? I want to believe that we can keep doing it, and others would be able to do it as well if they had the support to regain that access. The complexity of the north should not be used as an excuse not to have services. That would be my main point here.
Chair: You have made that point very powerfully, as have all the witnesses. We are really grateful to you for joining us today and telling us the reality on the ground. As I said at the beginning, it is incredibly difficult for us to get that reality so thank you for sharing your experiences. Please pass on our gratitude to all your colleagues and volunteers for what they are doing day in and day out. We admire them enormously. We have heard your call and will keep pushing the international community to step up and do more. Noha, as you said, it is absolutely morally the right thing to do, particularly with the landscape of horror that you have painted for us. Thank you all very much for your time today.
Witnesses: Dr Richard Barltrop and Helen Lackner.
Q35 Chair: We are fortunate to have a second panel. My apologies that we are running a little later than planned; it is always a challenge when we try to get first-hand testimony, not least because the internet does not always want to assist us in getting that evidence. Thank you both for being here in the room. Helen, I will start by asking you to introduce yourself and your vast experience in this field.
Helen Lackner: I have been involved with Yemen for 53 years this year, working mainly in rural development activities; I have held a number of other jobs in Yemen, and have lived in the three Yemeni states that have existed during that period. I might possibly get to see another one, or not, as the case may be. In recent years I have largely recycled myself as an analyst and author, writing about politics, economy, and society; I am leaving the peace stuff to Richard.
Q36 Chair: That hands us beautifully over to Richard: what is your role?
Dr Barltrop: I am a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre. I research international and local approaches to peacemaking. I have a background in academic research on peace processes and carry out professional work for the United Nations and peacebuilding NGOs in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. I have worked for the UN in Yemen, in particular in the capital Sana’a, where I was based in 2020; from 2022-23, I worked for UN mediation efforts. I am speaking here in an independent capacity and as a researcher on what determines failure and success in peace processes.
Q37 Monica Harding: Helen, can I ask you to give a brief overview of developments in the war over the past year?
Helen Lackner: Since 2022, there has been an unofficial truce between the Houthis and the internationally recognised government. Let me take this opportunity to say that it is a problem when people talk about north and south. It is geographically not technically correct and it is politically weighted. There are people—we might talk about them later—who want to recreate the pre-1990 borders, so when one talks about north and south it presents a problem. I personally use the term internationally recognised government, IRG. Otherwise, officially, people use DFA—de facto authority—when referring to the Houthis in Sana’a if they do not want to use the word Houthis or Ansar Allah, as they choose to call themselves.
Until 2022 the main actors in the war were the Saudis and the then internationally recognised government. In April 2022 two major things happened. First, a truce was declared, thanks to the United Nations—the special envoy played a role, but the main reason the truce happened is that both sides wanted it. Primarily the Saudis wanted to get out. The Saudi regime changed when the new King and his son took over in 2015; the son was enthusiastic about the war in Yemen and thought he could win it in a few weeks. By 2022 it had become apparent that this was not the case. The other thing that happened was that the ex-President Hadi, who died a couple of months ago, was replaced by a Presidential Leadership Council, or PLC.
That is the political situation. Militarily, since 2022—in fact since early 2021—there are a number of fronts that have largely remained unchanged; the situation is static in terms of military control and is not that much different from 2016.
The main political developments of the past three or four years have been a basic absence of change and absence of improvement, since the Presidential Leadership Council took over. The PLC has eight members—all men of course—but they are not united, they are extremely divided. They spend more time in disagreements, rivalry and internal fighting—not military fighting except on one occasion—than they spend thinking or worrying about how to solve the problem with the Houthis.
The PLC was formed in April 2022 by agreement between the Saudis and the Emiratis who each had four supporters on it. The big change that has happened is related to the much wider change of the growing Emirati-Saudi rivalry—this is not the topic here, but I can go on to speak about it.
In December, possibly as a result of something that the Saudis said to Trump about Sudan, the Southern Transitional Council, which is one of many southern separatist factions—which is why I am not into talking about southerners—took over the two northeastern governorates of Yemen: Hadhramaut and Mahra on the border of Oman and Saudi Arabia. It did that extremely quickly and without any major fighting; it was told to withdraw and it refused. As a result, for the first time the Saudis bombed two Emirati ships carrying military equipment in the port of Mukalla.
Chair: I am going to interrupt you: we are straying into the remit of both the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee with your comprehensive answer. Please can we focus on the humanitarian and development situation? I am going to pass to Monica for the next question.
Monica Harding: It is complicated—
Helen Lackner: Could I just finish with one sentence?
Chair: Just one sentence, please.
Helen Lackner: In January, the internationally recognised government and the PLC ousted the Emiratis and the Southern Transitional Council, so the PLC has now been reformed with a different membership, or at least two different members. They are still divided but that issue is solved; or rather it is not solved but that would take another sentence.
Q38 Monica Harding: What will the next role of Saudi Arabia be in Yemen, and how will it evolve in the coming months, Helen?
Helen Lackner: The Saudis have two options. One is that they do what they were planning in 2023, which is to make a deal with the Houthis and then force the internationally recognised government to accept it. The other option is to go with the internationally recognised government, which is now 99% under their authority, and fight the Houthis to recreate a united Yemen. My past understanding was that they were in favour of option number one but, for international reasons, they have not taken it. You can imagine the international outcry in relation to the Iran war if they signed a deal with the Houthis at the moment; it would be impossible.
On the other hand, although the internationally recognised government have been very active in military restructuring, military reorganisation and so on in the last six months, they have not yet reached the stage where most people who know more about military things than I do would say that they are capable of fighting back. At the moment, the Saudis are just sitting there trying to control the IRG. They are not putting in enough money to finance salaries, fuel, and other needs. There are major electricity problems and so on because they are not putting in enough funds, which would be important in strengthening the internationally recognised government; at the same time they are not letting go. As far as I can tell, they are hedging the situation.
Q39 Monica Harding: Richard, would you like to come in there? What is your opinion on the removal of the STC; has it improved governance or stability across Yemen?
Dr Barltrop: At the moment, it has an impact within the south; as Helen explained, it has a political impact on the Presidential Leadership Council or the PLC. That does not mean a transformation in the governance situation in southern and eastern Yemen. The aspirations of the Southern Transitional Council remain intact, even though the party has taken a hit; the aspirations—greater and smaller—of other sections of the population also remain. The events early this year will have caused ripples in local governance but are not going to lastingly alter the situation.
Helen Lackner: The Southern Transitional Council is now completely split. Half of the members have gone with the Government, and the other half are trying to continue being separatists.
Q40 Noah Law: Helen, turning to the issue of displacement and playing into the situation you have described, how has that affected national stability?
Helen Lackner: About four and a half million people are displaced; many are in communities with relatives or friends or have moved from one village to another. There are a lot of small displacement camps, mainly in the Marib Governorate, where the population has risen from around 300,000 to 3 million in the course of the last 10 years; there are large numbers of displaced people in Marib, mostly in a large number of very small camps.
Politically, I do not think the displacement issue is making much difference to the Yemeni situation. The main aspect is humanitarian. In the case of Marib—where you have a very large number of displaced people—the impact on the water supply is another important factor. Water is a fundamental issue, so that again is something one could talk about; the water supply and potential for economic activities and so on in Marib is very much affected. The availability of water has an indirect impact on stability. At that level, you have a connection.
Dr Barltrop: Relative to conflicts elsewhere in the world, there have not been large population displacements in the past year or two—or three or four. As Helen mentioned, there has been an informal truce since the official renewable two-month truce expired in October 2022. That has meant there has only been low-level limited skirmishing or fighting within the country and there have been no major cross-border hostilities with Saudi Arabia from the Houthi side. There have been no significant population displacements as there have been in dynamic conflicts such as in Sudan. The conflict in Yemen is not dynamic; it is much more static.
Helen Lackner: Most of the political and military displacement was in the early years. Most of the displacement that has happened in the last two or three years has been due to environmental causes—including droughts and floods—but the figures are much lower.
Q41 Chair: That is interesting. A few years ago a witness said to us, “Always follow the movement of people to see what is going on in a country.” While the conflict is not happening, you are seeing environmental movement; I also wonder if people have given up hope, so there is not anywhere for them to move to?
Helen Lackner: I do not think so. People move when they are desperate—that is quite straightforward—and they move when they are pushed. Either they are pushed by fighting, or on a lower basis by a flood. At another level you have a general level of displacement that started before the fighting and is going to go on. For example, in areas where the water has completely run out, people have had to move. Their villages have been abandoned and they have moved to the cities, which creates another set of tensions. It creates instability when you suddenly have thousands of people from villages moving into a town or city where there is also a shortage of water, schools, medical services, and everything. That creates social tension, which can become political tension. Those who are militarily displaced, or who are going to camps, more or less end up in empty areas. Referring to your earlier question on agriculture and development, less than 3% of Yemen land is suitable for agriculture, so there are plenty of desert spaces in which to create a refugee camp—and when you get into the situation with water, it is much worse.
Dr Barltrop: I would add that the environmental stresses are probably stronger or more acute in the more arid lowland regions. The highlands are the agricultural heartlands to some extent.
Helen Lackner: I am not sure I would agree with that.
Dr Barltrop: There are also environmental pressures.
Helen Lackner: It is a matter of water tables. Yemen has no permanent rivers; it only has one tiny one.
Chair: We have a water expert on our panel; Brian, is there anything you want to come in on?
Brian Mathew: I nearly had a job doing the water supply in Sana’a, but I decided against it.
Q42 David Mundell: Helen, do you think the static situation that you have described over the last short number of years has led to international actors being more concerned with managing the situation than trying to resolve it?
Helen Lackner: I agree with what people said in the previous panel: international actors are just not interested in Yemen.
Q43 Chair: Why?
Helen Lackner: It is a long way away; it is isolated. It controls the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which is the one point that could get the international community interested. It has a large population and it is poor. It has no significant oil or other goodies unless some rare earths are discovered, in which case maybe they will get excited and start trying to get things out. I do not know, to be honest. I have been involved there for 50 years and I love the place—I know lots of people who do—so I am not the best person to say why nobody cares.
Q44 David Mundell: You have touched on the fact that, given the Houthi’s previous and probably ongoing relationship with Iran, the current Iran conflict means that a dialogue with the Houthis is more difficult.
Helen Lackner: It is more difficult for the Saudis; nobody else wanted to talk to the Houthis in the first place. Did the UN want to talk to the Houthis?
Dr Barltrop: Yes, it did; it is the mandate for the UN special envoy to use their good offices to mediate. You asked why the situation is static; it is the peace process or peace efforts that are static or stagnant. One illustration is that a two-month truce was renewed only twice in 2022 and there has been no subsequent agreement, although there was a prisoner exchange agreement this year.
Helen Lackner: That was supposed to happen last week but it has been cancelled indefinitely.
Dr Barltrop: It built on previous prisoner exchange agreements, but it is not a core peace process. The core peace process is static, like the conflict. Why is it static? Helen mentioned that in effect Yemen does not matter enough to some international actors. Another part of the answer would be that the international vision and framework for the peace process is rigid. It is fixed by a UN Security Council resolution 2216 dating from April 2015—11 years ago—and the interpretation of that resolution. That resolution is being adhered to by those international actors that talk about and try to involve themselves or give diplomatic support to a peace process for Yemen, but it does not fit with the realities; in many respects it is obsolete.
Q45 David Mundell: We have considered and taken evidence on other conflicts, for example in Sudan, which is a hugely complex conflict. Even if there was a will to resolve that, it would be incredibly difficult. Do you think that if there was a will to resolve this conflict it could be done?
Dr Barltrop: Yes. At the moment, the configuration of the peace process for Yemen is an international vision and framework. The terms and the framework included in Security Council resolution 2216 envisage an eventual Yemeni-led political process. That process or that element has never been reached in the past 11 years. As peace processes elsewhere in the world show, it is ultimately for the people whose country it is to shape and lead a peace process; they can do it best.
Helen Lackner: Among the Yemeni leaders of the conflict—on both sides—there is no will to bring an end to this. Some of them, on both sides, are profiting massively from the war situation. On the IRG side they are still divided—slightly differently this year from last year—and competing with each other. The leaders are profiting from this war and they do not particularly want to solve it. My view is that mediators can do and say what they want but if the parties concerned do not want to solve it, they will not.
Most of the 35 million or so Yemenis, however, do want to solve it. They do not want to live in this war. They do not want to suffer all the things we have talked about and not talked about; but they have no control over the military. In the Houthi area, there is a very efficient, effective and unpleasant, repressive regime. You heard some examples of that earlier. On the IRG area, there are different factions running their own unpleasant regimes and fighting each other. The Saudis are now in a position to try to dictate something, but they are not—they are not trying to solve this rivalry.
Q46 Brian Mathew: Could I ask a slightly off the wall question; it might be interesting to hear the answer. Was there ever a golden age when Yemen regarded itself as being a happy place?
Helen Lackner: Yes; it lasted from 1990 to 1992 or just about 1993. That was the best time. It was just after unification, and everybody was very enthusiastic about it. There was freedom of expression and a multiplication of newspapers and media all over the place. Everybody was really enthusiastic about elections, about progress, and about how they were going to get democracy and development. Those were good days, and everybody was hopeful. Yes, Ali Abdullah Saleh was murdering a whole load of socialists on the quiet, but they thought, “That won’t last, we’ll sort it.” People were hopeful until the 1993 elections: everywhere you went, people were enthusiastic. I remember at one point sitting with some guys trying to count the number of new political parties and we gave up when we got to about 40. People were really hopeful that there would be development, that education, health, development and activities were going to be the thing and that there would be democracy—all the things that they hoped for. But as I said, it did not last.
Q47 Janet Daby: We want to get back to that effective, great, good governance. You have answered my question already—do not feel you need to repeat things you have said—but I want to get a sense of what the biggest barriers are to restoring effective governance in Yemen.
Helen Lackner: Obviously, the war and the divisions. In the long run, the way to solve these problems is through federalism; that is the only thing that would work in Yemen. There are long-lasting and long-standing divisions, both politically between the states and socially and politically between tribal and other groups and different regions, so a well-designed federal state would make a lot of sense. There was discussion of a federal state and it was decided to have one after the National Dialogue Conference, but in a completely bureaucratic manner: for instance, “X, Y, Z is governor of here, X, Y, Z is governor of there, let’s mix it together.” That is not the basis on which to create a federal state. You have to look at the social structure balance, at social groups, and at naturally available resources so that you do not end up with one place that has loads of stuff while the next one has nothing. In Yemen, water is absolutely fundamental. That is the basis on which one could hope to plan. People are still talking about it but not with interest because they do not want to solve the problem.
Q48 Janet Daby: Are you aware of anyone working towards that?
Helen Lackner: There are still people talking about it but most of the people I know who are hopeful or interested in politics are pretty depressed. They are a bit lacking. I was talking to someone yesterday, asking him, “What’s the future?” He said, “I have my vision but nobody wants to listen.” I said, “Well, I’ll listen.” He said, “Yes, but nobody listens to you, either.”
Q49 Janet Daby: We are listening. Richard, what role do you think local actors and civil society in Yemen can play to help stabilise the country?
Dr Barltrop: Freedoms are lacking, but that is a reality in many countries in the Middle East and more widely. Among civil society, civil organised groups and NGOs, the desire to be more influential is there, as indicated in the previous witnesses’ responses. The enabling environment will come as and when there is a facilitation and creation of space for inter-Yemeni dialogue. As I said earlier, a fundamental problem is that the prevailing framework for the peace process in Yemen is inappropriate: it does not foster growth in the space for civil society activity. At the moment it is difficult for those civil society groups to act, to do local peacebuilding, to engage in Track III or Track II initiatives in support of higher-level peace mediation, or to engage in areas of developmental work involving terms that some governing authorities dislike. As Noha said, they have to struggle and find ways to work around and relabel the things they want to do. The desire and capability is there, without doubt. The skills and capability of Yemeni civil society groups and NGOs should not be doubted.
Q50 Sam Rushworth: Richard, the UK is the penholder for Yemen, as we are for many difficult conflicts at the moment. What leverage do you feel the UK has? As a follow-up to that question, how can we be more effective in our role as penholders?
Dr Barltrop: As a penholder, you have the leverage of drafting resolutions or opening the way for discussions on potential resolutions around the Security Council. That leverage has not been used well, and I am not the only person who would say that: researchers and people who have worked on peace processes have written on this from as long as eight years ago, remarking that the rigidity and inflexibility and the refusal to reconsider resolution 2216 was unhelpful. It was limiting mediation and the potential for the peace process to make gains. The question for the UK is that, as penholder, has it used that penholding well?
Q51 Sam Rushworth: Do you feel that the UN has leverage? If the UK were to use its role as penholder better, do you feel there would be leverage over the actual situation on the ground?
Dr Barltrop: It would be welcome. It is not just the Ansar Allah in Sana’a that would welcome easing in the international framework for the peace process and the picking up of a pen for drafting a new resolution addressing the peace process. There are other Yemeni parties that would welcome that also. What was the other part of your question?
Q52 Sam Rushworth: I am wondering whether anyone has leverage. In your first answer, you suggested that the UK has not effectively used its role as penholder at the UN; even if it did, what leverage do you feel it could have?
Dr Barltrop: The UK is very limited in its leverage. It can facilitate in the capacity of penholder but subsequent leverage is limited, partly due to the very limited diplomatic engagement with some parties in Yemen. The absence of foreign diplomatic missions—largely speaking—from Sana’a and northern Yemen has consequences for limiting its diplomatic leverage.
Q53 Sam Rushworth: Helen, what about the UK’s regional relationships? Are we sufficiently leveraging those relationships to have any impact?
Helen Lackner: The UK could suggest to the Emirates that they completely stop being involved in Yemen.
Sam Rushworth: We could suggest it, but what is the likelihood that it would work?
Helen Lackner: You have seen how much impact other suggestions to the UAE have had, particularly on Sudan. I do not know what else could be done.
Q54 Monica Harding: You talked about the rigidity and inflexibility of the UK approach, or maybe the framework that the UK is proposing. Why has the UK come to that inflexibility? What is the reason they propose that?
Dr Barltrop: I think because of group-think, a diplomatic bubble and lack of contact with the country; lack of contact with realities in the country, lack of on-the-ground experience, observation and interaction with Yemenis of all political and non-political backgrounds.
Q55 Monica Harding: Do you know the size of the UK’s diplomatic mission in Yemen or what it has been historically?
Dr Barltrop: I do not know the numbers, but obviously they do not have an office inside Yemen. That is a question you can put to the FCDO and the ambassador. How many days a year does the ambassador spend in Yemen? It is vanishingly few.
Q56 Monica Harding: More diplomatic engagement with Yemen would perhaps unlock this inflexibility and the rigidity of the framework. From the British taxpayer’s point of view, Yemen is surrounded by very wealthy countries that are absolutely involved in Yemen. Why should the UK get involved in this?
Dr Barltrop: I do not think that the UK necessarily has a lot to offer. The neighbouring countries are much more important, and the reputation of the UK in Yemen—at least for some Yemenis—is tarnished by its history and its role in the Saudi-led military intervention since 2015.
Helen Lackner: A lot of people look back to the days of British rule in the south and in Aden, and many Yemenis think Britain should be involved because of that involvement. Many of them would welcome it, at least among the southerners.
Q57 Noah Law: Do you think there is any point whatsoever in the UK playing this role as penholder in Yemen? If not, who would better play that role?
Helen Lackner: That question might apply to most penholders. It is about the power of the UN; that brings up the issue that the UN’s influence has gradually become weaker and weaker as the decades have gone by.
Dr Barltrop: Countries can feel flattered by the penholding role, as though it is a testimony to their diplomatic finesse and skill at drafting. But there are 15 countries in the Security Council; even in the Security Council discussions yesterday about Yemen, the issue of resolution 2216 was raised, and the question of its age or obsolescence.
Q58 Sam Rushworth: It is no criticism of you, but I feel as if we are struggling to answer this question. I am not asking it as a challenge so much as I am trying to think through what would be the most meaningful diplomatic action that the UK could take. Do you have any thoughts on that? Can you just take 30 seconds to reply?
Helen Lackner: Diplomatically, I would say try to push the neighbouring countries to be more involved and possibly talk to the different Yemeni politicians—if they are interested in listening—and try to persuade them, not to change their views but to start thinking about the millions of people who are suffering.
Dr Barltrop: I would agree with that, and would add that the UK could do more to acknowledge the realities of governance within Yemen and engage with those realities. There is an administration, a government in Sana’a led by Ansar Allah and minority partners. It should not be a complete taboo to acknowledge that.
Q59 Monica Harding: Just to come back to what you said was group-think, where does that come from? Is it UK group-think, or diplomatic group-think?
Dr Barltrop: It is my observation—I have not been part of it—that there is group-think among the diplomatic community that is engaging with Yemen but based outside the country in Riyadh, and to a lesser extent in Amman in Jordan. They are interacting with other out-of-country embassies to Yemen and with a limited section of the internationally recognised government of Yemen and their embassies abroad; they are staying within the comfortable space of a discourse about a political path for Yemen, without questioning it.
Helen Lackner: You could say it goes back to the Friends of Yemen, which if I remember rightly was set up in 2009. That developed into a group of 10 ambassadors, which then created the GCC initiative and agreement. So there is a corpus; obviously, the individuals have changed, but we are now well into the second decade of its operation. That may be an element.
Dr Barltrop: To add to that, of course, there is the standard diplomatic turnover of staff moving every two or three years.
Q60 Monica Harding: Helen, does the UK have a strategy for Yemen other than humanitarian assistance?
Helen Lackner: I do not know, but I could suggest one. I could suggest things to do with development, which is what I am keen on.
Dr Barltrop: To the extent that it has a strategy, that strategy is unrealistic and unhelpful for the prospects for peace in Yemen. That is the final reckoning.
Q61 Chair: Let’s go there, Helen. The last two hours have been pretty bleak about the humanitarian situation and life for civilians; the development situation has not even been touched upon because there does not seem to be the ability to operate in that space. Let us try to end with something hopeful to aim for. Let us say that there is a foreseeably lasting peace, and an opportunity to stabilise and rebuild Yemen. Helen, you said that you could offer a development solution. What would be the priorities and how would it come into reality, with international money or private money? What would you foresee?
Helen Lackner: Yemen’s crisis is very deep and goes back way before the war started. There are incredible, basic, fundamental things that need to be done. Some can start now. You do not have to wait; you must not wait. In my view the two major sectors that need to be addressed are first, water and environmental issues, and secondly, education. The Yemeni education system is not appropriate to the 21st century. The population of Yemen is still growing at almost 3% a year. There is an absolutely desperate need if the new generation is to fit into a modern economy. Even when the education system works it is crudely more 19th century than 21st. It is something that cannot wait and does not have to wait; you do not need to wait until you have peace to do things such as developing appropriate syllabi, training potential teachers, and preparing and designing an education system that will create a labour force that is able to survive and be operative. It takes about 15 years to get that going; the later you start, the worse it will be.
Working on the education thing is one element, and something that the UK could fund and participate in. That could start now and it does not have to address—at least not directly—the split between Houthi-controlled areas and IRG-controlled areas. Let us remember that two-thirds of the population are in the Houthi-controlled areas: they are the vast majority. To me, working on education is one of the two basics that need to be addressed.
Q62 Chair: Richard, what are your thoughts? What development needs should the international community focus on?
Dr Barltrop: It should be led by the Yemenis now and in that hypothetical or hopeful future of greater and widening peace. The capabilities of Yemenis regarding development and the economy should not be underestimated; they must not be. The narrative of precariousness around Yemen regarding its economy and humanitarian conditions has long prevailed internationally, but within the country there are a lot of capabilities. There are economic strengths and sectors that have resilience and capability. There are large numbers of Yemenis working in neighbouring countries and further afield remitting back to the country.
Q63 Chair: Is the banking system still operational, so that remittances will get through to the right people?
Dr Barltrop: As far as I know, yes.
Chair: That has given us a little window of opportunity. Going back to what you were saying at the start: in the last two years, the movement of people is more environmentally than conflict-driven; that is a topic that this Committee has sadly come back to over many years. I hope the next time we meet to discuss the situation in Yemen—both from a humanitarian and developmental point of view—we will be looking at the successes that have been made. Thank you both for all that you have done over many years. We have listened, Helen; tell your colleague we have listened and we have broadcast, and that we will continue pushing the UK Government to do everything that is within its power to try to get the stability that everybody so dearly wants. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Committee.