At the beginning of my speech to you, I would like to pay tribute to all noble humanitarian efforts to meet challenges of ever-growing food crises, like our today’s international peace conference on food challenges under the title “Fix The Food”.

Today’s global conference is an important landmark on the path to mobilizing and coordinating global efforts within a global network, aimed at addressing food crises and following all available ways to coordinate and organize these efforts and push them to more effective and influential levels, thereby promoting humanitarian action worldwide.

However, I should not here talk about the problem's symptoms in our countries without the focus on its core and causes. We wanted to live in dignity, driven by the belief that dignity, justice, democracy, human rights, the right to a decent life and access to food are interlinked and indivisible.

Our talk and our participation in global efforts to find best ways to secure safe and healthy food for people in areas of armed conflict and poor countries are not a substitute for our continuous struggle for peace, democracy and the right of all peoples to live in safety under the rule of law that guarantees them their basic rights and respects their humanity.

International efforts to secure safe, healthy and sustainable food for an increasing number of people are no longer temporary initiatives, rather have become pioneering global systems and programs to address food crises and have turned into a global network of international humanitarian organizations and various actors, and all of them are working in this humanitarian field. Our meeting here is only an expression of this global network that make food crises within its interest and priorities.

The fact that this global network continues to address challenges and food crises will constitute the cornerstone for its development and expansion. Attention should be drawn to the importance of achievements done in the field of global relief and food aid provided to millions of beneficiaries in crisis areas, as well as to the need for this global network to be made more effective in providing humanitarian aid.

However, a broad view of food crises will need a deep dive into the political environment that causes wars, violence and food crises, and thus accounts for the collapse of countries’ systems, services and business sectors, especially in conflict areas where residents find themselves face to face with complex problems like the lack of access to food, a challenge that falls among the most urgent problems and needs to be addressed as soon as possible to avoid starvation.

 

All my dear friends, 

In past times, people used to suffer from hunger and severe shortage of food. Today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, huge numbers of people live below the poverty line and have no access to safe and healthy food.

Today’s human inability to access to food comes at a time of the technical and industrial progress, and at an age of information, Internet, and communications, a painful fact that is tantamount to an indictment against our world’s prevailing global order, and to a condemnation against the conflict of interests between major powers that have poor regard for human rights and global security and stability.

Humans have succeeded in developing their tools, but at the expense of their values. We have gone forwards in means and machines, but have backwards in providing justice, security and peace for all human beings, and by that I mean the policies of major powers, or what we call the "world order". Never has the world been as so gloomy as today.

Hunger, poverty and oppression have colored the lives of many people in today’s world. Democracy, the rule of law, stability and food security are interconnected. Our experiences say that tyranny has deprived us of both democracy and development. Monopolizing power and resorting to force and violence to gain power have impoverished our societies and wasted our resources.

Immense hardships we have faced in the Arab Spring countries strengthen our faith in the rule of law, citizenship, democracy and human rights as a requirement to contain poverty and hunger. The denial of the right to get a decent living was the most notable feature of the authoritarian regimes across the Arab Spring countries. The absence of the rule of law and democracy cannot be separated from the challenges of poverty and food crises.

I am specifically talking about the Arab Spring countries plagued by counter-revolutionary wars. Different parts of the world, especially the least developed and poor countries, are plagued with poverty and hunger. Even so, the state collapse, coupled with the wars motivated by revenge on revolutions of change, is the core of our problem in Yemen, a place of the counter-revolution's fiercest war.

 

My dear friends, 

As you know, Yemen is my country, and it’s my duty today to speak to you about our people and how they are suffering from the scourge of war and from the world’s worst crisis as stated in global reports and also given the reality itself, where the picture is much gloomier than painted by these reports.

Allow me, my dear friends, repeat to you! Yemen is going through the worst food crisis in today's world. This is not mere words, rather an unprecedented crisis affecting more than more than thirty million Yemenis. It is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis after seven years of internal and external war targeting our country and people.

Our case is an example of bitter experiences afflicting more than one Arab State that has collapsed due to the resistance of tyrannical regimes to the demands for democratic change, which later developed into popular uprisings. Yemen is a country with a very long history. Tens of centuries before the newly created oil-rich Gulf states, Yemen and its civilization were a bright page in history of mankind.

Ten years ago, our people revolted against a tyrannical and failed regime that ruled for three decades and bequeathed us nothing but poverty and failure. Yemen is a country rich in resources, strategic location, coasts, islands and its struggling people, but the war has stood in our way. The ousted regime fought a war of revenge and allied itself with the Iranian-backed Houthi sectarian militias. They brought down the State in a coup on September 21, 2014. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE led a counter-revolution, supported and colluded with the Houthi putschists. Not only that, they waged war on Yemen on March 26, 2015 under the pretext of restoring and supporting legitimacy.  Six years after the Saudi-Emirati military intervention, they established new militias in Aden and spared no effort to prevent the State from being restored. Furthermore, the UAE has seized strategic islands like Socotra and Mayun, the port of Balhaf and coastlines, occupying the gas and oil areas in the governorates of Shabwa and Hadramout and preventing the legitimate government from exporting oil and gas.

The collapse was not limited to the state, but extended to the economy and currency, and large segments of population have found themselves below the poverty line and lacked access to basic food and medicine. The United Nations expected two million and three hundred thousand Yemeni children under the age of five to suffer from acute malnutrition this year. UNICEF said more children will die with every day that passes without action. The United Nations has also indicated that more than one million pregnant and breastfeeding women may suffer from acute malnutrition this year.

With such frightening prospects, the World Food Program recently warned of a fiscal deficit in months and devastating consequences for the aid-dependent population. The rise in food prices during the first half of 2021 caused suffering of millions and weakened their ability to buy enough food.

For its part, Saudi Arabia in recent months has implemented extensive campaigns to expel Yemeni expatriates from its southern governorates bordering Yemen. Specifically, the campaign targeted university professors, teachers and quality labor of different professions, who had found itself looking for job opportunities outside Yemen due to the war, conflict and the collapse of the state.

Despite its allegations of supporting Yemen, Riyadh did not take into account the conditions of war in Yemen, as it has resorted to continuous arbitrary measures that have affected Yemeni expats in its soil as, a way to push them to leave. This poses a severe blow to the humanitarian situation in Yemen, as Saudi Arabia has been the only destination for Yemeni expatriates for decades. Iran supports the Houthi coup militias in Sanaa, the Shiite version of the Taliban, dealing with Yemen as a battleground of its conflict with Saudi Arabia.

With its coup against the government and its battles to invade the capital Sanaa and other cities, the Houthi militia was the main reason for the war and the collapse of the state. Accordingly, it bears the greatest responsibility for the war, conflict, humanitarian and living crises in Yemen.

The intervention of Tehran and Riyadh in Yemen caused a devastating war. These two rogue states, along with the UAE, constitute an obstacle to end the war and to the return of the Yemeni state because they support militias in Sanaa and Aden and use them as a means for keeping their influence on Yemen..

 

My dear friends,

The state collapse has thrown millions of Yemenis into the open to face their fate, devoid of all protection. Aid cannot be a solution, yet remains an international humanitarian duty at the time of state collapse, war and the spread of famine. Humanitarian action and efforts to end conflicts and restore stability and the rule of law should complement, and not replace, each other.

These global efforts and the associated sustainable food program and global organizations pave an important way to do something, and convey a global humanitarian message on difficult challenges related to food insecurity , hunger, war and conflicts and their resulting humanitarian tragedies.

Based on our experiences in Yemen, I assure you today that the global systems of sustainable and healthy food serve as an urgent and great humanitarian function. We look forward to strengthening the role of these systems in Yemen, making the Yemeni situation among their urgent priorities in order to get access to large segments of the population suffering from war and conflict.

International support for Yemen will not be effective if the Yemeni situation is reduced to the humanitarian aspect and aid. However, this does not mean that Yemenis who are below the poverty line and are at risk of starving to death have to wait until the war ends to receive humanitarian aid. Effective humanitarian support for Yemen will require more than financial support for the work of humanitarian organizations in Yemen.

Effective support for humanitarian relief programs in Yemen and the delivery of food and medicine to the largest possible number of needy people will still require extensive pressure on the Houthi militias to ensure the operational independence of international humanitarian organizations operating in Yemen.

Our experience in Yemen reveals a lot about these challenges. The world has contributed to alleviating Yemenis’ suffering due to the war and the collapse of the state. But the militias’ control over the work of international organizations has greatly limited their effectiveness in favour of the agenda of these militias. 

The absence of any signs of an immediate end to the war and the restoration of the state in Yemen does not prevent the international community from exerting real pressure on the Houthi militias to allow international relief efforts to continue their work independently in order to reach the affected, needy and population groups suffering from war and conflict..

Continuous relief activity of international humanitarian organizations in Yemen according to the desire of militias turns a large part of the international support into a tool in the hands of the Houthi putschists who impose their oppressive grip on a densely populated area inhabited by nearly twenty million Yemenis.

Systematic and increasing restrictions imposed by these militias on the work of international organizations deprive large segments of the population of benefiting from food, medicine and humanitarian aid. These obstacles to the work of international organizations in Yemen reaffirm that  all challenges are mainly attributed to the stat’s collapse and its replacement by militias.

We want the world to help us to restore the state and stability. Otherwise, hunger will expand and victims of war and conflict in Yemen will increase. 

 

My dear friends, 

In conclusion, let me tell you something! Insofar we in Yemen need the world to help us to face starvation, we also need its help to end the war and restore the legitimacy, the Republic of Yemen, in order to complete the democratic transition.

Unless the world realize the root and causes of the Yemeni problem, the single story will lead to portray our problem as a humanitarian crisis, a perception that provides the food crisis with all the groundwork to turn into a threat of starvation.

Hunger and food crises strengthen our faith in our right to peace, the rule of law, democracy and human rights, even though tyrants have misused them and tried to present them as headlines that have nothing to do with people’s lives and do not represent any deterrent to violators of rights or to those imposing  restrictions on people’s right to a decent living, participation, expression, and determination of their form of life and the governments that take charge of their affairs.

The Arab Spring revolution, which collided with a locally, regionally and globally intertwined tyranny, are but a great scream of aspiration for living under democracies that respect their people, serve them, meet their necessary needs, raise their standard of life and acknowledge that the citizen is the source of authority and the one who decides its fate. 

Thank you all for your noble humanitarian efforts to address global food crises, in favor of a symbiotic and solidarity world that is more reflective of human values!