Humanitarian Response Plan Overview
In 2023, two-thirds of the population of Yemen—21.6 million people—will need humanitarian assistance and protection services.1 The 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen (HRP) requires US$ 4.3 billion to reach the 17.3 million most vulnerable people in need (PiN) of humanitarian support as a result of protracted conflict, displacement and economic deterioration, compounded by recurrent natural disasters.
The total projected number of people in need in 2023 has decreased slightly from 23.4 million people in 2022 to 21.6 million in 2023 and the overall intersectoral target from 17.9 to 17.3 million people. These changes are mainly due to technical modifications to cluster-level needs assessments and revised food security projections released in October 2022.2 They do not reflect an across-the board improvement in the humanitarian outlook. Gains that have been registered in 2022 remain extremely fragile. The humanitarian response in Yemen will support people facing multiple vulnerabilities, including but not limited to internally displaced persons and those attempting to return, Muhamasheen,3 persons with disabilities, and migrants and refugees.
The response approach will be organized around three strategic objectives focusing on life-saving activities, resilience contributing to durable solutions, and the centrality of protection. The response strategy in 2023 aims to address immediate and significant levels of needs, delivering urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance to 14 million people, under the first strategic objective alone. At the same time, it recognizes the importance of working closely with development partners to prevent a broader collapse of basic services and economic conditions that would further exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation. Humanitarian, development and peace (HDP) actors will engage in coordinated action under the strategic umbrella of the recently established Yemen Partners Group (YPG) and its operational structure, the Yemen Partners Technical Team (YPTT) and building on opportunities as presented in the UNDSCF. These coordination structures aim to expand the existing HDP nexus efforts, as well as the operationalization of the Durable Solutions Working Group under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office.
An increased focus on protection as the centre of the response aims to ensure strengthened leadership, coordination and collective engagement on reducing protection risks and increasing capacities' of the affected population.
The response will further place people at the centre, building on progress made on community engagement and accountability to affected people (AAP), by implementing new collective feedback mechanisms and the roll out of community perception surveys. This work will ensure that assistance and services are adjusted to people’s needs as ongoing efforts towards the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) are further strengthened and reinforced.
The humanitarian response in 2023 will continue to be informed by the findings and recommendations of the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation of the Yemen Crisis, which was completed in mid-2022. This will include coordinated and concerted efforts across the humanitarian community to strengthen access, analysis, community acceptance, localization, humanitarian-development collaboration and other key areas.
Currently, Yemen is neither in a war of full-scale military offensives, nor does it benefit from a formal peace.
During the truce which held from 2 April to 2 October Yemen, conflict-related displacement decreased by 76 per cent. At the same time, victims of land mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), including unexploded ordnance (UXO) increased by 160 per cent. Essential services and the economy continued to deteriorate. The cost of the minimum household expenditures basket rose by over 50 per cent4 in the space of a single year.
In the absence of a comprehensive political settlement, continued displacement, the economic situation, and lack of capacity of state institutions, are likely to remain a key driver of needs. An estimated 4.5 million people—14 per cent of the population—are currently displaced, most of whom have been displaced multiple times over a number of years.5 Natural disasters and climate-induced events, such as drought and flooding, are key drivers of displacement and heighten existant needs.6 Many of the most vulnerable internally displaced people live in flood-prone areas or inadequate shelters, risking further increased needs and displacement.7 Continuing protracted displacement even with lower rates of new displacement,8 may well ensure Yemen remains among the top six largest internal displacements in the world.
Throughout 2023, humanitarian needs are likely to hold steady and the resilience of vulnerable populations to decrease as a result of the ongoing breakdown of basic services and the fragility of Yemen’s economy due to macroeconomic instability and the depreciation of the Yemeni Rial (YER), the de facto separation of economic institutions and issuance of competing monetary policies, low household purchasing power, inflation and high prices of food, fuel and other essential commodities.9
An estimated 5.4 million—25 per cent—of the people in need across Yemen are affected by access constraints. Access challenges are most prevalent in northwest Yemen, where they are largely bureaucratic impediments. At the same time increasing security issues (such as carjackings, kidnappings and other forms of violence) have been registered particularly across areas primarily under the control of the internationally recognized Government of Yemen (GoY).
A comparative minority of access incidents in either area are directly caused by insecurity related to active armed conflict.
The vast majority of access constraints are issues related to bureaucratic impediments, which mainly include denials of movement and delays of travel permits. Bureaucratic impediments include two key challenges on the rise into 2023. The first is increasing imposition of mahram requirements primarily by Ansar Allah (AA, also known as the Houthi de facto authorities), whereby women must be accompanied by a close male family member to travel. This has impacted female national staff traveling on field missions, leading to the delay and cancellation of field visits, needs assessments and life-saving assistance deliveries. It likewise has had a major impact on the access of women to essential services, education and livelihoods opportunities. The second is long delays in approval of sub-agreements, leading regularly to delayed implementation of urgently required humanitarian projects and services for the better part of a year.10 Access challenges remain the most important challenge to effective humanitarian action in Yemen. As such, coordinated action to safeguard operational space and ensure safe, unimpeded and principled access will be a cornerstone of the response in 2023.
Clusters are targeting only the most vulnerable people in need through highly prioritized planning and humanitarian actors are increasingly implementing integrated programmes to improve quality and efficiencies of response.11 However, the per unit price of activities has increased in eight out of ten clusters, due to high global supply chain costs, rises in commodity prices, the continued fragility of Yemen’s economy and access impediments. These factors have driven overall funding requirements upwards despite a decrease in the number of people targeted, compared to 2022.