Yemen Humanitarian Fund Annual Report 2018

2018 IN REVIEW

This Annual Report presents information on the achievements of the Yemen Humanitarian Fund (YHF) during the 2018 calendar year. However, because grant allocation, project implementation and reporting processes often take place over multiple years (the YHF is designed to support ongoing and evolving humanitarian responses), the achievement of the YHF are reported in two distinct ways:

1. Information on allocations for granted in 2018 (shown in blue). This method considers intended impact of the allocations rather than achieved results as project implementation and reporting often continues into the subsequent year and results information is not immediately available at the time of publication of annual reports.
2. Results reported in 2018 attributed to allocations granted in 2018 and prior years (shown in orange). This method provides a more complete picture of achievements during a given calendar year but includes results from allocations that were granted in previous years. This data is extracted from final narrative submitted by partners in 2018. As a result, achievements from 2018 allocations will be reported in 2019 and subsequent years.

Figures for people targeted and reached may include double counting as individuals often receive aid across multiple sectors.

Contribution recorded based on the exchange rate when the cash was received which may differ from the Certified Statement of Accounts that records contributions based on the exchange rate at the time of the pledge.

HUMANITARIAN CONTEXT

Humanitarian Response Plan
– 22.2M People in need
– 11.3M People in acute need
– 13.1M People targeted
– $3.1B Funding requirement

Humanitarian situation in 2018

During the year in review, Yemen continued to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, driven by conflict, economic collapse and the continuous breakdown of public institutions and services. Seventy-five per cent of the entire population, 22.2 million people required some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 11.3 million who were in acute need – an increase of more than one million people in acute need since June 2017. The escalation of the conflict since March 2015 had dramatically aggravated protection risks for millions.

Malnutrition crisis

At the beginning of 2018, humanitarian partners estimated that due to reduced availability and constrained purchasing power, approximately 10.4 million people living in 107 of 333 districts were facing heightened risk of sliding into famine. At the end of the year and following the Integrated Phase Classification assessment, two hundred and thirty of Yemen’s 333 districts are now food insecure. This includes 148 districts which are classified as phase 4 under the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, 45 districts with families in IPC phase 5, and 37 districts which have global acute malnutrition rates above 15 per cent. For the first time in Yemen, assessments confirm the presence of catastrophic levels of hunger. At least 65,000 people are already in advanced stages of extreme food deprivation and 238,000 people living in districts with IPC 5 areas will face similar conditions if food assistance is disrupted for even a few days.

Overall, seven million, four hundred thousand people, nearly a quarter of the entire population, are malnourished, many acutely so and the IPC estimates that 20.1 million Yemenis (67 per cent of the entire population) are food insecure. Acute malnutrition rates exceed the WHO emergency threshold of 15 per cent in five governorates and close to 30 per cent of all districts record critical levels of malnutrition. Two million malnourished children under five and 1.1 million pregnant and lactating women require urgent treatment to survive.

Between January to December 2018, FSAC partners assisted an average of 7.4 million people with regular monthly emergency food assistance (in-kind, cash transfers, & voucher transfers).

Cholera crisis

The worst cholera epidemic in modern history hit Yemen in 2017. Because of this, prior to 2018’s cholera season, humanitarian partners came together and adopted a focused plan with 26 high priority activities including vaccinating 274,650 people in five high risk districts in Aden and 388,000 people in Hudaydah and Ibb, chlorinating water sources in 21 districts and repairing water and sanitation grids in 197 districts, pre-positioning 1,400 cholera kits, water tanks, chlorine and supplies in 238 districts, retraining health and WASH rapid response teams in all districts and establishing and supporting 91 Diarrhea Treatment Centres and 216 Oral Rehydration Corners. As a result of these interventions, the number of cholera cases and associated deaths reported have decreased from 900,000 suspected cholera cases and 2,192 associated deaths reported in 2017 to 280,198 cholera cases reported with 372 associated deaths in 2018 (January to November 2018).

Displacements

Since 2015, nearly 15 per cent of the entire population, 4.3 million people, have been forced to flee their homes; 3.3 million people are still displaced today. More than 685,000 people have been newly displaced in the past year, the majority by fighting in Hodeida and along the western coast.
Close to 74 per cent of displaced families outside hosting sites are living in rented accommodation; 22 per cent are being hosted by families.

Nearly 300,000 of the most destitute and vulnerable IDPs are living in 1,228 collective sites; 83 per cent of these sites have no health services, 39 per cent report water deficits and 43 per cent have no toilets. Nearly one-third of all IDPs live in the 104 districts across the country with the highest convergence of complex, multi-dimensional problems including food insecurity, insufficient protection safeguards, governance deficits, disease outbreaks and the widespread lack of basic public services including health care, water, sanitation and electricity.

Economic crisis

The unprecedented rapid and uncontrolled depreciation of the Yemeni Riyal (YER) across the country during September and October 2018 worsened the economic crisis, resulting in soaring prices of basic commodities. At its highest the exchange rate was 860 YER /USD in Aden, a 300 per cent depreciation compared to the pre-crisis rate (215 YER /USD). The average cost of the monthly minimum food basket in October 2018 rose by 15.7 per cent from September (increase from 4,840 YER in September to 5,600 YER in October 2018 – in August it was 4,229 YER). Moreover, the cost of food basket in October 2018 is 137 per cent higher than in the pre-crisis period. Due to all these persistent price increases, hundreds of thousands of families are being forced out of local markets, unable to purchase the basic necessities required to survive.
More people are vulnerable now than at any time during the recent conflict.

Scaling up

During 2018, the humanitarian operation in Yemen has undergone a step-change, becoming one of the largest, most impactful operations managed by the UN anywhere in the world. Working under increasingly difficult conditions, 254 international and national partners have delivered food assistance, health care, nutrition support, protection, shelter, education, water and sanitation and livelihood support, reaching nearly 8 million people each month. Millions of lives have been saved and hundreds of thousands of Yemeni families have been helped to survive one of the most difficult periods in their country’s history. The YHF played a key role as enabler of the humanitarian response by funding the entire humanitarian preparedness plan of the Clusters, empowering partners delivering assistance on the frontlines of the conflict, and scaling-up assistance for displaced people fleeing the conflict areas.

https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-fund-annual-report-2018