Aden 03 November 2020 - UN-Habitat organized a High-Level virtual meeting to celebrate the closure of “Rapid City and Neighborhood Profiling” project. Funded by the European Union, and in partnership with Yemeni Government, the project aimed at supporting and improving the humanitarian and recovery response through providing better urban information and analysis. The result of the project was the production of seven city profiles with urban recovery plans that were verified and discussed with local government representatives from each city.

Erfan Ali, UN-Habitat Regional Representative for Arab States welcomed the attendees by saying “Yemen needs to go through a recovery process, and this needs to be done with a focus on re-building cities and towns to be safer, more inclusive, resilient and sustainable. Humanitarian assistance, development work and peacebuilding are not a serial process and are all needed at the same time, and are needed now in Yemen. We strongly believe that the urban profiling and spatial data portal can be the strong basis to formulate the urban recovery framework for Yemen’s sustainable future.”

Mr. Hans Grundberg, The EU Ambassador to Yemen said “Innovation has always been at the core of EU policies. This project represents the very innovative way to provide aid to Yemen. The city profiling will enable Yemeni institutions and international organizations to provide a better targeted aid for Yemen. The city profiling developed important sources of information for the Yemeni authorities to understand the situation in the country and at the same time, it will facilitate access on the ground for many humanitarian organizations.”

Mr. Najeeb Al Awj, the Yemeni Minister of Planning and International Cooperation said “When we talk about the urban profiling project, we need to talk about the importance of determining the main features of the project, which was implemented through you in seven Yemeni cities. This had a positive impact of the Yemeni governments with our development partners in order to define the investment priorities for recovery, reconstruction and humanitarian assistance.”

Lise Grande, the United Nations Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen said “You can see by this profiling exercise, we are activating, enlivening, and engendering the nexus, linking our humanitarian work with our recovery effort, and at the same time, we are helping to set up an parameter for a peace discussion and the national dialogue. It is an exceptional programme.”

The meeting was widely attended by partners and Government officials, and constructive discussions took place on the best way to benefit from the profiles to accelerate the urban recovery and provide better living conditions for the people in Yemen.

The profiles, urban indicators and dashboard are available on: https://yemenportal.unhabitat.org/