Humanitarian aid in Yemen has been cut by 62 percent over five years, endangering the lives and futures of the country's most vulnerable people, especially children, the international non-governmental organization (NGO) Save the Children International warned on Monday. The continued funding cuts come as two-thirds of Yemen’s population – 21.6 million people, including 11 million children – are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection this year.
The current level of hunger in Yemen is unprecedented. An estimated 2.2 million children in Yemen are acutely malnourished, including nearly 540,000 children under the age of five suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
The rate of child malnutrition is one of the highest in the world, and the nutrition situation is improving only slightly. However, this progress is extremely fragile and could reverse quickly if aid agencies are forced to reduce or suspend programs due to funding shortfalls.
17 million people in Yemen experience high levels of acute food insecurity, driven mainly by conflict, economic decline and climate change. This number includes 6.1 million people in emergency levels of hunger.
Yemen also faces critical water shortages for both agricultural production and human use. According to aid agencies, nearly 15.4 million people require access to safe water and sanitation to avoid being at risk of cholera and other deadly diseases.
Despite the severity of the situation, funding for the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Yemen, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian emergencies, has plummeted from $3.64 billion USD in 2019 to $1.39 billion so far this year.
As of September 25, the 2023 HRP for Yemen requiring $4.34 billion is only 32 percent funded.
"The generosity of donors to Yemen has provided a critical lifeline to children and their families. While we deeply appreciate the years of support that has been provided, now is not the time to look away from Yemen", Rama Hansraj, Country Director for Save the Children in Yemen, said.
Commitments made by donors at the High-Level Pledging Conference in February this year barely reached one-third of funding requirements and with 2023 winding down, few additional pledges and contributions have been made, and some donors still have not dispersed the funding that was promised.
According to Save the Children, the United Kingdom has slashed its funding to the HRP by over 86 percent since 2019. Denmark scaled back by nearly 80 percent, while Germany, which remains the fourth largest donor, is lagging behind its funding commitments with a scale-back of over 60 percent.
“We are at the brink of leaving an entire generation behind. These are not just numbers; these are children with dreams, aspirations, and the right to a safe and fulfilling life. If funds continue to deteriorate, particularly from our key donors, the consequences will be irreversibly catastrophic”, Hansraj said.
The humanitarian organization said the United States, which provides nearly half of all humanitarian funding for Yemen, has also reduced its humanitarian aid by 23 percent, given increasingly dire needs globally and a more constrained funding environment. The European Commission also slashed its funding by around 22 percent.
Meanwhile, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have virtually abandoned their funding, with cuts of almost 99 percent, 98 percent and 90 percent respectively since 2019. At the same time, few other countries have stepped up their contributions, including Canada (15 percent), the Netherlands (46 percent), and France (59 percent).
Save the Children urgently calls for immediate, flexible funding increases, especially in key underfunded sectors, to prevent the undoing years of progress in Yemen.
Last month, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it was facing a deeper funding crisis for its Yemen operations from the end of September onward, forcing WFP to make difficult decisions about further cuts to its food assistance programs across the country in the coming months. The UN agency has already reduced live-saving programs.
The UN agency said all of its major programs in Yemen would be impacted. Without new funding, WFP expected that as many as 3 million people in the North could be impacted and 1.4 million beneficiaries in the South.
Recently, Save the Children along with 97 other international and local humanitarian organizations made an urgent call to action in light of the Yemen funding crisis. Amid the magnitude of humanitarian needs, the decreasing funding trends - further compounding the situation - continue to worry the humanitarian community in Yemen.
“Funding cuts are leaving millions of already vulnerable people exposed to circulating disease outbreaks, hunger, and limited access to health care, as support to health facilities in the most vulnerable areas is also reducing”, the aid agencies said.
The 97 humanitarian organizations called on international donors to upscale quality and flexible humanitarian funding, to ensure equity of funding across sectors, and to ensure humanitarian funding is made available as early as possible in the year and continued at regular intervals across the year.
The international and Yemeni aid agencies also said Yemen’s humanitarian response required an expanded and more diversified number of donors.
More than eight years of armed conflict in Yemen have caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties and forced millions to flee, making Yemen one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Nearly 6 million people have been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of the civil war in 2015. 4.5 million people are internally displaced inside Yemen.
Despite a six-month ceasefire in 2022, the suffering of the country's population remains immense, mainly due to the deteriorating economic situation and the collapse of basic services. Moreover, Yemen is at the forefront of the global climate crisis, as recurring natural disasters such as floods and severe droughts threaten people's lives, safety and well-being.
Further information
Full text: Humanitarian aid in Yemen slashed by over 60% in five years, Save the Children International, press release, published September 25, 2023
https://www.savethechildren.net/news/humanitarian-aid-yemen-slashed-over-60-five-years
Full text: Joint Statement on Yemen Humanitarian Situation and Funding Gap, 98 UN Agencies, International non-governmental organisations, Yemeni civil society organisations, released September 14, 2023
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/joint-statement-yemen-humanitarian-situation-and-funding-gap-enar