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Current Requirements (US$)$4.34 billion
Analysis of the context, crisis, and needs
Eight years into the conflict’s escalation, the crisis in Yemen remains severe, with more than 21 million people needing humanitarian assistance. The conflict’s protracted nature has resulted in economic collapse, increased poverty and the breakdown of national social protection systems, worsening the already alarming food insecurity situation. Basic service delivery across the country continues to be vastly inadequate and hampered by damaged infrastructure, lack of critical supplies and personnel, and limited public system capacities. Deepening poverty and financial unaffordability further hinder access to essential services and goods for the most vulnerable populations. In 2022, Yemen also experienced two weather extremes, swinging from severe drought to intense flooding as the country bears the brunt of the climate crisis. Between January and June 2022, Yemen experienced moderate-to-severe drought conditions, and by mid-July, torrential rains and flooding had hit several areas across the country. By the end of September, this had affected 74,000 households (more than 500,000 people) in 19 governorates.
The UN-brokered truce, which commenced on 2 April 2022, provided the people of Yemen with the first sustained reprieve from fighting since the conflict surged in 2015. The truce enhanced humanitarian access in some areas and resulted in reductions in internal displacement and civilian casualties. By November, the truce had not been extended following its expiry on 2 October, although its provisions largely continued to hold, and no major military escalation had taken place.
Despite the improvements during the truce, low-level hostilities in 61 districts with active front lines and the presence of landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) continued to impact civilians. According to the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project – an open, unverified source – civilian casualties due to landmines and ERW reportedly increased by 38 per cent compared to the pre-truce period, having killed or injured 343 civilians between 2 April and 30 September, compared to 248 civilians in the six months before the truce. A total of 186 access incidents related to landmines and ERW were reported during the same period. The presence of and exposure to explosive hazards in civilian areas as well as damage or destruction of civilian infrastructure and houses pose further obstacles, impacting prospects for return and sustainable recovery.
Marib, Yemen
An internally displaced family walk through Al Sumya IDP camp.
OCHA/Jihad Al-NahariYemen continues to be one of the world’s most challenging operating environments. Throughout 2022, the humanitarian operation continued to be impacted by bureaucratic impediments, movement restrictions, insecurity and aid interference incidents, which hindered and delayed aid delivery to millions of people. Meanwhile, funding gaps for the humanitarian operation have forced humanitarian partners to cut back or even close life-saving programmes, including for severely underfunded sectors such as shelter/non-food items (NFIs), health, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education and protection.
Millions of people are still in a situation where they are unable to meet their basic needs, with detrimental impacts especially on vulnerable groups. This increases the risks of people adopting harmful coping strategies, such as accumulating debt, selling assets, forced or early marriage, school dropout and child labour, with grave long-term impacts, especially on women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities and marginalized communities.
The conflict has displaced 4.5 million people, including 234,283 displaced people in 2022. Some of the highest levels of vulnerability are concentrated among the estimated 1.65 million internally displaced people (IDPs) living in some 2,431 displacement sites in sub-standard living conditions. Durable shelter solutions for those in displacement sites and in areas of return are minimal due to the focus on the emergency response, the scale of housing destruction, and other house, land and property issues. An estimated 300,000 migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees also face extreme risks and are highly reliant on humanitarian aid.
Al Sumya Camp in Marib, Yemen
Ahmed Mohamed Ali, 68, is internally displaced from Ibb with his nine family members.
OCHA/Jihad Al-NahariProjected situation in 2023 and beyond
In 2023, the severity of needs is expected to remain at similar levels as in 2022. In the case of a major escalation in conflict following the non-extension of the truce, new or recurrent displacements and needs across the country are likely to increase in 2023. In the absence of investments addressing root causes of poverty and improving access to sustainable livelihoods, further economic deterioration and decreasing purchasing power are likely to aggravate food insecurity and malnutrition rates, dire living conditions and protection concerns. IDPs will continue to live in sub-standard living conditions with limited humanitarian access and limited access to adequate housing, despite continued efforts to mitigate risks. While projections were less grim at the end of 2022 than initially expected, acute food insecurity will remain at high levels, especially in the event of major shortfalls for the humanitarian operation.
Flash flooding is expected to impact tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people — including IDPs, who could lose their shelters — as well as devastate infrastructure, services, agriculture and livestock. Essential service delivery is expected to remain inadequate and hampered by the lack of infrastructure, risk reduction measures and long-term investments. The inability to address underlying drivers of food insecurity will continue to maintain people’s dependency on humanitarian assistance.
Delivering life-saving oxygen to Aden’s neediest patients
In Yemen, oxygen is a critically important resource in clinics and hospitals. It facilitates surgeries and maternal and child-related care, and it treats medical conditions such as asthma, pneumonia and COVID-19. However, the pandemic has strained Yemen’s supply of medical oxygen, and the ongoing conflict has left hospitals and clinics without ready access to fresh supplies of this crucial resource.
In partnership with the Islamic Development Bank, the World Health Organization launched an initiative to build oxygen stations at 14 hospitals and health clinics throughout Yemen, as part of the country’s National COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan. The project is progressing, and in April 2022, Al-Sadaqah Hospital in Aden was the first to get its new oxygen production unit up and running.
Wala’a Walid’s son suffered from severe jaundice, and Al-Sadaqah Hospital was his only hope. She explained: “The first thing the doctors did was to put him on the ventilator to get enough oxygen. His condition has been better in the week since he entered Al-Sadaqah.”
The project, overseen by a biomedical engineer, includes staff training along with ancillary equipment such as ventilators and arterial blood gas analysers, which deliver oxygen in a medically useful way.
Abdurrahman Mohammed Musa works in the hospital’s paediatric intensive care unit. He knows exactly what difference the new oxygen station has made: “Most patients who come here suffer from shock, lack of blood circulation or difficulty breathing, so they need oxygen in ventilators. Oxygen is indeed available in private hospitals, but you pay money to get it. There is a demand here because oxygen is available and free.”
When oxygen was available it was delivered to the hospital’s patients directly from large canisters that were lugged to each patient’s bedside. But the new oxygen station has vastly improved this laborious routine.
Response priorities in 2023
As of September 2022, 150 partners across Yemen have assisted at least 15 million people. Each month, an average of 10.6 million people, including IDPs, returnees and vulnerable host-community members, were reached with humanitarian assistance in Yemen.
In 2023, the humanitarian community will continue these life-saving activities and work to strengthen the aid operation in accordance with the recommendations of the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation that was completed in mid-2022. Preventing food scarcity and finding systemic solutions to food insecurity by improving access to sustainable livelihoods will remain a major response priority, as will reducing mortality and morbidity, preventing malnutrition, and providing WASH, shelter/NFI, education and health services. Additional priorities will include scaling up the provision of localized humanitarian interventions, promoting integrated responses to ensure access to and availability of essential services, strengthening mine action activities and increasing pre-positioning of contingency supplies. In light of the protracted nature of the crisis and climatic shocks, further investment and coordination models are needed to strengthen development assistance, address the underlying causes of hunger and poverty, and support progress towards durable solutions to displacement while protecting needs-based and principled humanitarian action.
Yemen HRP
References
- This significant increase in landmines and UXOs-related casualties (during the truce) is likely a result of increased mobility of civilians as the truce provided access to wider-range areas in Yemen as well as flooding which shifted the positions of landmines.
- The most recent Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis of acute food insecurity projects that 17 million people in Yemen will face high food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 and above) in October to December in 2022, a reduction of 2 million people compared to estimates from earlier in the year.