Prime Minister Shaya Zindani meets acting WFP chief Carl Skau in Aden
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Prime Minister Shaya Zindani met the acting head of the UN World Food Programme in Aden on Tuesday, the state news agency Saba said.
The talks with Carl Skau covered food security and humanitarian cooperation, according to the agency, which carried its account on September 1.
Saba is the sole source for the meeting. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of it.
The two men discussed the effect of Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab strait, the agency said.
Those attacks have pushed up transport and insurance costs and disrupted supply chains, affecting food security and the movement of goods and aid, according to Saba’s account.
Zindani praised the programme’s work with vulnerable communities, the agency said.
He called for a stronger partnership to improve aid delivery and to move gradually from emergency response to sustainable programmes, Saba reported.
The prime minister also raised what he described as violations against humanitarian and UN personnel.
He said the government was committed to protecting aid workers and easing humanitarian operations, according to the agency.
Skau said the programme would continue its assistance in Yemen and strengthen coordination with the government so that aid reaches the communities most in need, Saba reported.
Skau has led the agency on an acting basis since June 1. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed him interim head pending the designation of a permanent executive director.
The WFP Executive Board welcomed his appointment, the agency said.
He is also the programme’s deputy executive director and chief operating officer. He has travelled to Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine and Palestine over the past year, according to the agency.
Zindani took office as prime minister on February 6, after Salem Saleh bin Braik resigned. He was appointed by decree of Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council.
Zindani had served as foreign minister since March 2024. Bin Braik was finance minister before he became prime minister in May 2025.
Aden is the seat of the internationally recognised government.
The meeting comes as food assistance in Yemen contracts. The programme began a targeted emergency food assistance scheme in February, cutting the number of people it aims to reach in government-held areas from 3.4 million to 1.6 million, according to the famine early warning system FEWS NET.
Six distribution cycles are planned for 2026, FEWS NET said. Assistance remains suspended in areas under Houthi control.
Yemen’s 2026 humanitarian needs and response plan was 7 percent funded at the end of February, according to the same analysis. In 2025, 22 percent of food security and agriculture requirements were met.
An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis released on June 3 found 47 percent of the population in government-held areas facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
About 5 million people were in crisis conditions or worse, including 1.4 million in emergency conditions, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and UNICEF said in a joint statement. The outlook was expected to worsen as the year progressed.
During the June-to-September lean season the three agencies projected 5.4 million people, or 51 percent of the population in those areas, would face acute food insecurity. The emergency caseload was expected to reach 1.5 million.
They said the figure in emergency conditions would rise again to 1.8 million between October and December, after the harvest.
“The latest IPC findings send a stark warning. Families are being pushed beyond their coping capacity by the combined effects of economic collapse emanating from conflict and civil unrest, climate shocks, disrupted livelihoods and declining humanitarian support,” the three agencies said in the statement.
Weak purchasing power, a deteriorating economy, high agricultural input costs and falling humanitarian funding were driving the trend, they said.
Households depend heavily on markets while their spending power erodes, the agencies said, citing irregular salaries, high food and fuel prices and fewer income opportunities.
Women and children, displaced people and marginalised communities are among those most at risk, according to the statement. Reduced dietary diversity, poor household food consumption and limited access to preventive nutrition services are raising the risk of acute malnutrition, particularly among pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children.
Displaced households face severe food consumption gaps and are increasingly relying on negative coping strategies, the agencies said.
Agriculture and livestock production remain under pressure from input costs, climate shocks, pest outbreaks, flood risk and disrupted trade. About 60 percent of Yemeni households rely at least partly on farming, and growing numbers need emergency agricultural assistance to sustain production, the statement said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs put the number of Yemenis needing assistance at more than 22 million in its plan for the year, published in March.
It said 18.3 million were acutely food insecure and 5.2 million were displaced. More than 2.2 million children under five were acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.
The plan sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.
FAO, WFP and UNICEF called on donors to scale up funding for food assistance, nutrition, health and agriculture.
Without sustained and scaled-up action, millions of vulnerable people risk falling deeper into hunger, malnutrition and irreversible livelihood loss, the three agencies said.
The World Food Programme issued a statement in September 2025 on the arbitrary detention of aid workers in Yemen.
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