The Secretary-General met today with H.R.H. Prince Mohamad Bin Salman Al Saud, Crown Prince, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 
 
The Secretary-General expressed his deep gratitude to the Crown Prince and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for delivering today on the generous pledge it made with the United Arab Emirates in January to provide US $930 million to the 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan. 
 
These funds cover almost one-third of the $2.96 billion required to implement the 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, which will enable the United Nations and its partners to help alleviate the suffering of millions of vulnerable people across Yemen. More than 22 million people in Yemen require humanitarian aid or protection assistance, including 2 million who are internally displaced due to the ongoing conflict.
 
The Secretary-General highlighted that even with the generous funding provided to the UN and partners today, a funding gap of almost $2 billion remains in the appeal for what is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.  The Secretary-General said he hoped other donors will follow the generous example of both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to make generous contributions towards the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan at the Yemen High-Level Pledging Event in Geneva on 3 April. 
 
The Secretary-General and the Crown Prince discussed the obligations of all parties to the conflict under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and the critical need for humanitarian access across the country and for all of Yemen’s ports to remain open to both humanitarian and commercial movement. 

They also discussed the need for the parties to the conflict to work towards a negotiated political settlement through inclusive intra-Yemeni dialogue. The Secretary-General stressed that ending the conflict is the only way to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis. 

New York, 27 March 2018