Japan grants US$5 million to scale up nutrition response in Yemen

Close to 100,000 children under five years old and 216,000 pregnant and lactating women will benefit from nutrition interventions

Sana’a, 27 March 2021 – The Government of Japan has granted US$5 million to UNICEF to scale up the nutrition response in Yemen over the next nine months. With this emergency funding, close to 100,000 children under five years old and 216,000 pregnant and lactating women will benefit from a package of both lifesaving and preventive nutrition interventions.

An estimated 2.3 million children under five years old and 1.2 million pregnant and lactating women in Yemen are acutely malnourished. This includes nearly 400,000 children who suffer from severe acute malnutrition and whose life is at great risk without urgent treatment.

“Children in Yemen urgently need all the nutritional assistance possible”, said Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF Representative to Yemen. “We are very grateful to the people and the Government of Japan for this important contribution, which will help us bring children the critical support they need to survive a deteriorating humanitarian situation”.

Over the next nine months, 209 districts in 20 governorates that are projected to experience a further deterioration of their nutritional situation will benefit from UNICEF interventions, such as procurement of essential nutrition supplies, support for Therapeutic Feeding Centers, increased coverage of Outpatient Therapeutic Programs, and community-level interventions through Mobile Teams and Community Health Volunteers.

Since 2016, Japan has contributed US$27 million to UNICEF Yemen to address urgent humanitarian needs through Emergency Grant Aid and Supplementary Budget support. This contribution comes as a boost to the response of UNICEF and partners to the nutrition crisis that Yemen is currently facing.

Acute malnutrition among young children and mothers in Yemen has increased with each year of conflict since 2015, with a significant deterioration during 2020, compounded by high rates of diseases, such as diarrhoea, respiratory tract infections and cholera.

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