The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced Tuesday the pause of general food distributions in areas of Yemen under the Sanaa Based Authorities' (SBA) control. The pause is driven mainly by limited funding and the absence of an agreement with the authorities on a smaller program that matches available resources to the neediest families. Sanaa and northern regions of Yemen are under the control of the Ansar-Allah movement - also known as the Houthi group.
In a statement Tuesday, WFP said this difficult decision was made in consultation with donors, and comes after nearly a year of negotiations, during which no agreement was reached with the SBA to reduce the number of people served from 9.5 million to 6.5 million.
Food stocks in the areas under Houthi administration are now almost completely depleted and resuming food assistance, even with an immediate agreement, could take up to as long as four months due to the disruption of the supply chain of humanitarian food assistance into Yemen. 
WFP said it will continue its resilience and livelihoods, nutrition, and school feeding programs to limit the impact of the pause of food distributions for as long as the agency has sufficient funding and the cooperation of the authorities in the North. 
In areas of Yemen under Government control, general food distributions will continue with a heightened focus on the most vulnerable families, aligning with resource adjustments announced last August.
In August, the food agency had announced it was facing a deeper funding crisis for its Yemen operations from the end of this year and had planned further cuts to its food assistance programs across the country in 2023. The UN agency had already reduced live-saving programs before August.
Similar cuts are taking place in nearly half of WFP’s operations around the world. The UN agency, the biggest recipient of appeal funding, is in the midst of a crippling financing crisis that is forcing the organization to scale back life-saving assistance at a time when acute hunger globally reached record levels.
Like most UN aid agencies, WFP is suffering a serious cash shortfall for its operations. Since March, the UN food agency has therefore slashed aid to millions of people and suspended emergency assistance to millions more worldwide.
Cindy McCain, who took over as head of WFP in early April this year, has pledged to increase funding and find new donors, but so far there have been no noticeable improvements. Millions of vulnerable people in urgent need of assistance have not received life-saving support and face continued life-threatening hardship due to persistent funding gaps.
Yemen remains one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with an estimated 21.6 million people needing humanitarian assistance or protection in 2023. The humanitarian crisis, primarily driven by continued conflict and an economic collapse, has been exacerbated by critical funding gaps, global inflation, and access challenges. In addition, global food shortages have worsened the situation, many vulnerable households in Yemen face difficulties in securing food, with prices becoming unaffordable.
The current level of hunger in Yemen remains high. 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.
17 million people in Yemen experienced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2022, according to the latest IPC analysis.
According to a recent household survey, food security slightly improved during October 2023, compared to the previous month and compared to October 2022. Nonetheless, food insecurity remains widely prevalent across Yemen; approximately 51 percent of the surveyed households in Government-controlled areas and 46 percent in areas under Houthi authorities were unable to meet their minimum food needs during October.
The UN anticipates high food assistance needs will persist throughout Yemen between November 2023 and April 2024 as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, particularly in southern Yemen, according to a joint report released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and WFP in October.
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.
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. Among them are 4.5 million people 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.
Despite the expiration of the truce in October 2022, hostilities on the front lines have not returned to pre-truce levels, but intermittent fighting has continued. While fighting has abated over the last two years, millions of Yemenis still rely on humanitarian aid. The United Nations estimates that 11 million children are among those 21.6 million people in dire need of humanitarian aid.
United Nations and partner organizations have appealed for $4.3 billion this year to help millions of people across the country. As of December 6, only $1.63 billion has been received from international donors (38 percent coverage rate).
Further information
Full text: WFP pauses food distributions in northern areas of Yemen, World Food Programme (WFP), press release, published December 5, 2023
https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-pauses-food-distributions-northern-areas-yemen