About us
We are committed to reach all children everywhere in Yemen, especially the most vulnerable to help them survive and grow to realize their rights
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Yemen is currently one of the worst countries for a child to live in as it is facing a protracted conflict which has been ongoing for more than 7 years. Thousands of children have been killed or maimed in a war not of their making and the combined risk of conflict, disease and malnutrition is a daily reality for these children. Those who survive will live with the scars of conflict.
The entire country faces an enormous humanitarian catastrophe compounded by violence, currency depreciation, lack of essential commodities, non-payment of salaries for civil servants and collapsing of basic social services.
Across the country, 12.9 million children are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.
UNICEF is working around the clock with humanitarian partners to continue providing lifesaving assistance to children and families, including health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and child protection.
In 2021, UNICEF continued its response to the growing needs of children and their families and the worsening humanitarian situation.
UNICEF is focusing on health system strengthening, improving access to primary healthcare by providing supplies and responding to communicable disease outbreaks, and community prevention and management of malnutrition. The Water, sanitation and hygiene programme supports rehabilitation and sustainability of local water management systems to increase access to safe water. Acute watery diarrhea/cholera prevention and response is focusing on high-risk districts, including through provision of oral cholera vaccines. Vulnerable children are supported through survivor assistance, education on mines/ explosive remnants of war and resilience building. UNICEF continues to rehabilitate damaged schools, establish temporary safe learning spaces and provide learning/pedagogical kits.
Thanks to our partners across Yemen, we have been able to provide support to millions of children:
- Supported the treatment of severe acute malnutrition in 4,465 primary health care facilities and 34 therapeutic feeding centres.
- Provided emergency cash transfers to almost 1.5 million households every quarter — benefitting around 9 million people.
- Provided access to safe and sustained drinking water to 8.8 million people (5.3 million children) through a wide spectrum of activities including water trucking, the installation of water distribution points, and the expansion of water supply systems to IDP camps. We also provide fuel to support the production and distribution of clean water to 36 Local Water and Sanitation Corporations in 15 Governorates.
- Provided vaccination to at least 4 million children who have little to no access to primary health care.
- Responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the delivery of 1.7 million COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 through the COVAX Initiative.
- More than 410,000 children and caregivers in conflict-affected areas received psychosocial support, and over 5.5 million children and community members were reached with lifesaving mine risk education and another 4.1 million children and women accessing gender-based violence risk mitigation, prevention, or response interventions.
- More than 2 million people living in remote rural areas can now access public healthcare centers services including through training and deployment of 2,070 community health workers reaching 1.1 million people including 372,000 children and 389,000 women at reproductive age during 2021.
- Supported Mother Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) services in 23 hospitals providing operational assistance, as well as equipment and supplies. In addition, through the support to 4,500 static Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP) centres and 288 mobile teams, treatment and prevention of malnutrition services were scaled up.
- Over 209,000 children provided with individual learning materials and more than half a million (567,000) children have access to formal and non-formal education, including early learning. 229 schools implementing safe school protocols (infection prevention and control).
