UN relief wing allocates $58 million for life-saving assistance in war-torn Yemen

9 December 2016 - Amid soaring malnutrition and collapsing basic services in Yemen, a staggering 18.8 million people need humanitarian assistance, the United Nations relief wing has reported as it allocated $58 million through the Humanitarian Pooled Fund to bolster life-saving activities across the crisis-gripped country.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), among the millions of people in need, some 10.3 million require urgent assistance. Moreover, three million people are displaced.

In addition, malnutrition has soared more than 60 per cent since 2015, affecting more than three million people, including 460,000 severely malnourished children under the age of five, OCHA reported.

The Humanitarian Pooled Fund is preparing to finance 31 projects in the sectors of food, nutrition, water, sanitation, and health, in order to address the crisis and assist at least three million people in 15 priority governorates and under-served governorates, such as Shabwah, Dhamar, Al-Jawf and Marib.

Nine national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) ($7 million), fifteen international NGOs ($28 million) and six UN agencies ($23 million) will implement the projects. In addition, nine local responders receive support via direct funding with a total of $3.8 million granted to 28 national NGO's, which includes training and capacity building.

OCHA also expressed gratitude for generous donations from Canada, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. However, it stressed that scale of the conflict in Yemen will require more resources and urgent aid, as the 2016 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan is currently only 58 per cent funded.