UN looks to private equity investor to help feed Yemen

The United Nations World Food Programme is hoping to get a share of hundreds of millions of dollars from a private foundation set up to help Yemen by US private equity investor Tim Collins, UN food chief David Beasley said on Friday, reports Reuters.

More than six years of war in Yemen – widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran – have sent the impoverished country spiralling into what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

In a document shared with aid groups and seen by Reuters, the 2021 Famine Prevention Foundation aims to “avert a widespread famine by getting immediate assistance to the maximum number of people” experiencing famine or on the brink of famine.

Beasley said that he has spoken with Collins several times about the foundation, which has yet to be publicly announced.

“Tim’s working hard on a private foundation of funds,” Beasley told reporters. “He expressed his concerns about the governments around the world being stretched because of the crisis that we’re now facing because of COVID.”

Collins, founder of US private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC, declined to comment.

UN: 73% of displaced Yemenis are women and children

Most funding for UN aid appeals comes from governments, so the creation of the Famine Prevention Foundation is novel.

Contributors to the fund are thought to include entities in Gulf countries, an aid source told Reuters. Aid agency Action Contre la Faim told The New Humanitarian media outlet, which first reported on the new fund this month, that the money was thought to have come from private Gulf entities.

“The aim of the fund is to demonstrate that the UN can promptly scale up responses when given the means to do so … it is a way to reassure donors, in particular Gulf donors,” the aid source said.

The foundation is being run by John Ging, former director of UN aid operations, and Neal Keny-Guyer, the former chief executive of Mercy Corps aid organization, said two sources familiar with the situation.

Earlier this month countries only pledged $1.7 billion for humanitarian aid in Yemen – less than half the $3.85 billion the United Nations was seeking for 2021 to avert a large-scale famine.

Read: UN warns Yemenis fleeing clashes face hunger risk