Dr. Abdulaziz bin Hamad Al-Owaisheq, Assistant Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council for Political Affairs and Negotiations, took part in the UN-organized High-level Meeting on humanitarian situation in Yemen which was held in New York today on the fringes of the UN General Assembly's 72nd session. During the meeting, in which the GCC participates as associate president together with the Kingdom of Sweden and the Kingdom of Holland, Dr. Al-Owaisheq confirmed the pioneering role of the GCC member countries in providing support for Yemen to help its people sustain the current crisis. Giving an account on the role of the GCC countries in the provision of humanitarian assistance to Yemen, he said they have provided assistance worth more than $15 billion over the last ten years. Since 2015 until August 2017, the amount of humanitarian assistance provided to Yemen stood at $3 billion, he said, adding that pledges of GCC donors within the international response plan for 2017 was more than $450 million while that outside the response plan amounted to $2.7 billion. He said developmental assistance, including rehabilitation projects was over $11 billion appropriated for infrastructure projects. He added that GCC states have donated more than $90 million to curb cholera in Yemen and provided more than $600 tons of venous solutions targeting more than 350,000 beneficiaries. Al-Owaisheq urged the donor community to increase their finance levels for the response plan for Yemen and accelerate the procedure of disbursing the pledges they made at Geneva April 25, 2017, noting that some countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain and the United States have financed the plan with more than they previously pledged. He expressed the support of the GCC countries for Al-Hodeida plan provided by the UN envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in its capacity as the first step towards a political solution according to the UN security council resolution No. 2216. --SPA
