Global Humanitarian Overview 2024

Yemen

  • Current People in Need
    18.2 million
  • Current People Targeted
    11.2 million
  • Current Requirements (US$)
    $2.71 billion
People in Need at launch (Dec. 2023)
18.2 million
People Targeted at launch (Dec. 2023)
11.2 million
Requirements (US$) at launch (Dec. 2023)
$2.8 billion
Total population
33.4 million
Income level
Low income
INFORM Severity Index
5 / Very high
Consecutive appeals
2008 - 2024

Crisis overview and projections

In the context of nine years of conflict, sustained economic deterioration and diminished public services, dire levels of humanitarian needs continue across Yemen. While consultations with concerned authorities continue, an estimated 18.2 million people, or around 53 per cent of the population, need humanitarian assistance. Following the expiry of a truce in October 2022, truce conditions have largely continued to hold over the course of 2023. The relative respite from hostilities has supported improved humanitarian access in some areas, as well as an overall drop in new internal displacement resulting from conflict and lower numbers of civilian casualties. Sporadic clashes continue in border and frontline areas, and landmines and explosive remnants of war pose a deadly threat to civilians and impact prospects for sustainable recovery.

Yemen has one of the largest populations of internally displaced people globally, with 4.56 million people displaced. Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees face harsh conditions and heightened vulnerabilities, with an estimated 380,000 requiring humanitarian assistance.

Communities across Yemen are ill-equipped to face the climate crisis, as natural hazards such as droughts and flooding increase in number and severity. By the end of November, climate events had caused more than 229,000 new or secondary displacements, nearing the highest point in the four years since climate displacement tracking begun.

In 2024, overall needs severity is anticipated to be equivalent to that in 2023. While hopes remain that a negotiated end to the conflict is on the horizon, any re-escalation of hostilities would result in skyrocketing needs and displacement figures. Of significant concern is the likelihood of a deterioration in malnutrition, in the context of limited investments aimed at addressing the root causes of poverty, continued impediments to comprehensive vaccination campaigns in some areas, low humanitarian funding, inconsistent food assistance and ongoing economic and public service decline. Climate-induced events will continue to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities, damage shelters and other infrastructure, and disrupt service supply and livelihoods.

Response priorities in 2024

Despite substantial funding and access challenges, 211 humanitarian organizations delivered aid and protection services to an average of 8.9 million people every month in 2023, including internally displaced persons, returnees, marginalized communities and vulnerable host communities.

For 2024, humanitarian partners have undertaken extensive efforts to prioritize humanitarian response programming. This is based on a need to improve and adjust targeting and interventions in light of the evolution of needs, the operational environment and existing capacities, and the recommendations of the inter-agency humanitarian evaluation of the Yemen crisis, while also retaining flexibilities for contingencies. Humanitarian actors will focus on better integration of the response in areas where needs are the most severe, while strengthening synergies with development actors in order to shift to more sustainable solutions.

Aid in Action

Consultations to support strategic response planning

Yemen
Taiz, Yemen
An IOM water point provides clean and safe potable water to communities displaced in an overcrowded urban settlement located a few kilometers from an active frontline. Many residents of the neighborhood have been displaced. They have arrived with little belongings and require support for essential relief items and rehabilitation of their shelters.

For the first time in Yemen, the Humanitarian Country Team has rolled out an area-based approach, based on 11 local consultations, to support strategic response planning for 2024. Participation includes local humanitarian agencies, cluster coordinators, local authorities—including line ministries—and development actors. Through these consultations, strategic humanitarian priorities for the 2024 response are being set from the ground up. Assessment of the most relevant response modalities, accountability to affected populations and local ownership are at the heart of this work. In line with the protracted nature of the crisis and current de facto truce conditions, the consultations also focus on enhancing linkages between development and humanitarian interventions at local level, and priorities that can be taken forward by development partners.

Source

An IOM water point provides clean and safe potable water to communities displaced in an overcrowded urban settlement in Taiz city located a few kilometers from an active frontline.

Yemen