AGSIW Executive Vice President Stephen A. Seche spoke with BBC Newshour regarding humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Yemen:

There certainly is a problem with distribution of aid in Yemen. There is also a severe problem just to get aid into the country now. Yemen imports 90 percent of all of its food, and 70 percent of that assistance in food comes through the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, which has been pretty much knocked out of circulation because of the air war that Saudi Arabia has been conducting, and the fact that the Houthis now have seized control of the city. There is a lot of obstacles in the way of building confidence on the part of the international community that they can get aid effectively into the most needy parts of the population in Yemen.

I think there is certainly going to be a long-term need for the international community to involve itself in a very material way in Yemen’s rehabilitation, recovery, and reconstruction. This is going to take a commitment that is not just going to be, “Let’s just go in and do it a couple of years.” It is going to be a sustained, generational effort, or otherwise you are going to be right. Yemen is going to be looking for international assistance for an extended period of time if we can’t get in, stop this war, and start to put the pieces back together again as quickly as possible.