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The Humanitarian Situation in Yemen
November 06, 20177:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
Samir Elhawary, the Senior Officer for Humanitarian Affairs at the
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) in Yemen, and Helena Valencia, the General Coordinator of Doctors
Without Borders Spain (MSF España), are giving this conference.
The event will be presented by Pedro Martínez-Avial, the General Director of Casa Árabe.
The general humanitarian situation in Yemen is a crisis which occupies little space in international news programs, despite being considered the largest in the world. Over 20 million people need humanitarian aid, because they face the three-fold threat of displacement, cholera and famine. The conference will deal with the main causes of this crisis, while at the same time highlighting its impact on the people of Yemen, as well as debating some of the challenges faced by the humanitarian community in its attempt to reach the most needy people. A few recommendations will be given for solving the humanitarian crisis.
Samir Elhawary is the Senior Officer for Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Yemen. He is also responsible for general coordination in the field and humanitarian access in Yemen. Before working in Yemen, Elhawary held the position of assistant director at the Regional Office of the OCHA for the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining the UN, he was a researcher at the Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute, where his research focused on access to humanitarian aid, forced displacement and transitions occurring after conflicts.
With a degree in Political Science, Helena Valencia began to work in the humanitarian aid sector in Bosnia in 1995. She has worked with various organizations, such as the MPDL, Acción contra el Hambre and the UNHCR. In 2013, she joined Doctors Without Borders as a field coordinator in Lulingu (Democratic Republic of Congo). After that, she took over coordination of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo for five months, a position to which she returned for ten months in 2015, after a brief mission in Chad. South Sudan, Angola, the Central African Republic and Guinea Bissau are just a few of the countries where she has worked with Doctors Without Borders. Closely tied to the field of coordinating aid in countries undergoing conflict, her last two missions were in the Central African Republic and Yemen, where she worked as the General Coordinator from June to September of 2017.
The general humanitarian situation in Yemen is a crisis which occupies little space in international news programs, despite being considered the largest in the world. Over 20 million people need humanitarian aid, because they face the three-fold threat of displacement, cholera and famine. The conference will deal with the main causes of this crisis, while at the same time highlighting its impact on the people of Yemen, as well as debating some of the challenges faced by the humanitarian community in its attempt to reach the most needy people. A few recommendations will be given for solving the humanitarian crisis.
Samir Elhawary is the Senior Officer for Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Yemen. He is also responsible for general coordination in the field and humanitarian access in Yemen. Before working in Yemen, Elhawary held the position of assistant director at the Regional Office of the OCHA for the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining the UN, he was a researcher at the Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute, where his research focused on access to humanitarian aid, forced displacement and transitions occurring after conflicts.
With a degree in Political Science, Helena Valencia began to work in the humanitarian aid sector in Bosnia in 1995. She has worked with various organizations, such as the MPDL, Acción contra el Hambre and the UNHCR. In 2013, she joined Doctors Without Borders as a field coordinator in Lulingu (Democratic Republic of Congo). After that, she took over coordination of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo for five months, a position to which she returned for ten months in 2015, after a brief mission in Chad. South Sudan, Angola, the Central African Republic and Guinea Bissau are just a few of the countries where she has worked with Doctors Without Borders. Closely tied to the field of coordinating aid in countries undergoing conflict, her last two missions were in the Central African Republic and Yemen, where she worked as the General Coordinator from June to September of 2017.
Photo: OCHA/Giles Clarke