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Four years since the UN-brokered truce, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) operating in Yemen warn that humanitarian conditions are more fragile than at any point since the peak years of the response. Over 22.3 million people continue to face dire humanitarian conditions, struggling to meet basic needs and access essential services amid a protracted crisis, economic deterioration, aid cuts, displacement, and climate-related shocks.
Furthermore, the escalating conflict in the Middle East and the wider region threatens to exacerbate the dire economic situation and could trigger a resumption of large-scale armed conflict within Yemen. These regional shifts risk disrupting vital humanitarian and commercial supply chains and inflating the cost of essential goods.
While the humanitarian needs across the region demand urgent attention, the people of Yemen must not be overlooked. Despite the increasing humanitarian requirements globally, the international community must ensure that the crisis in Yemen remains a priority. Any increase in the cost of fuel or essential goods would have devastating impacts on the delivery of lifesaving services, pushing prices higher and increasing child hunger, malnutrition, and protection risks.
As regional tensions threaten to spill over, the humanitarian community warns that Yemen’s fractured economic and social infrastructure cannot withstand the shockwaves of a broader conflict. Yemen’s crisis is no longer driven by conflict dynamics alone, but increasingly by the collapse of humanitarian funding and the contraction of essential services.
Humanitarian partners urge the international community to sustain attention on Yemen in 2026, and to translate concern into concrete action. Closing critical funding gaps, safeguarding principled humanitarian access, and supporting humanitarian interventions are essential to prevent further erosion of life-saving services and systems.
Last year marked one of the sharpest funding declines in Yemen’s response history, accelerating a shift from isolated emergencies toward systemic collapse. Severe funding shortfalls, shrinking humanitarian service coverage, and sustained economic pressure on households accentuated by indirect and direct effects of the armed conflict have combined to erode basic coping capacities across most of the country.
According to the latest humanitarian analysis, Yemen’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan was just 28.42 percent funded. This represents one of the lowest funding levels recorded since the peak years of the response.
As a result, humanitarian clusters were compelled to scale back or suspend critical services at a time when needs were rapidly escalating, while also managing significant coordination and prioritization challenges. Health, nutrition, protection, water, and shelter services were among the hardest hit, leaving millions without essential support throughout 2025 and continuing into 2026.
Across Yemen, many humanitarian organizations have been forced to shut down programs and cut life-saving services due to severe funding shortfalls, leaving millions without critical support. Recent escalations have triggered new waves of displacement, yet the humanitarian response has been unable to keep pace as resources continue to decline. Local actors across the country are striving to meet growing needs with shrinking budgets, operating under immense pressure while attempting to protect the most vulnerable communities.
Health services under acute strain: What funding collapse looks like in practice
Yemen’s already fragile health system deteriorated further in 2025. Since January of last year, 453 health facilities have faced partial or imminent closure across 22 governorates, including 76 hospitals, 177 primary health centers, 200 primary health units, and 18 mobile clinics. Nationwide, only 59.3 per cent of health facilities remain fully functional, with most relying on temporary humanitarian or development support to continue operating.
This contraction has unfolded during one of the most severe disease years on record. Yemen continues to experience large-scale outbreaks of cholera, measles, dengue, and polio, while fuel shortages, medicine stockouts, and the non-payment of health worker incentives due to humanitarian aid funding cuts further undermine service continuity and referral systems.
A nurse at a primary health facility described the strain plainly:
“We are still opening the clinic every morning, but with fewer medicines, fewer staff, and more patients than we can handle. We work without salaries or incentives. Patients don’t even have blankets, and we cannot give them a single paracetamol because our medicine stocks are empty.”
Displaced communities facing mounting pressure
Monitoring of displacement sites served by humanitarian actors in areas controlled by the internationally recognized government shows rising pressure on internally displaced populations, particularly in southern governorates such as Abyan, Ad Dali’, Marib, and Ta’iz. Similarly, and in some cases more acutely, families displaced within areas under de facto authorities are facing mounting pressure to meet their most basic needs, with little realistic prospect of returning to their homes. Population levels in many sites have increased, while access to basic services provided by the government and humanitarian/development actors has steadily declined.
More than 1.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), approximately 25 percent of the IDP population in Yemen, continue to live in makeshift settings across the country, many in conditions that fall well below minimum humanitarian standards. Recent catastrophic floods across Taiz, Ma’rib, and Al-Hodeidah have claimed over 45 lives and destroyed thousands of IDP shelters. In Ma’rib alone, the storms have wiped away the last remaining protections for more than 15,000 displaced families, compounding the impacts of over a decade of conflict and forcing communities to face a dual crisis of climate shocks and protracted conflict
Humanitarian data points to persistent gaps in shelter maintenance, cash assistance, food support, health services, and education across IDP sites. Many locations now report low or no sectoral response capacity, heightening risks related to safety, dignity, and secondary displacement. With as many as 41,000 people at risk of experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC 5), this is an alarming warning of lives on the brink of famine.
A displaced mother living in a displacement site explained how the decline in services is affecting daily life:
“Before, at least there was some help. Now the support comes less and less. When my children get sick, I worry because there is nowhere nearby to take them, and we don’t have money to travel.”
Economic pressures driving food insecurity
Reflecting on the challenges witnessed in 2025, the worsening economic stress driven by rising costs, shrinking income, and lack of access to essential services is pushing more families into vulnerability. Household purchasing power across the country remains weak. Some public sector salaries have been paid, but a significant amount remains unpaid for several months in many areas, while prices of basic goods continue to outpace incomes. Since Yemen relies heavily on imported goods, families who are already struggling to make ends meet find it increasingly difficult to meet their basic needs.
Yemen is already the third most food insecure country globally, with half of the population facing hunger and over half 63% of Yemeni households are now unable to meet their minimum food needs. The crisis is no longer just about the availability of food; it is about the total erosion of purchasing power. Even as WFP is forced to cut assistance to half of its previous beneficiaries due to funding gaps, the cost of a basic food basket continues to climb, leaving the most vulnerable with no choice but to skip meals just to survive."
Families reliant on remittances or informal work are impacted by income volatility in addition to inflation. These pressures are compounded by rapid price distortions linked to currency shifts not yet absorbed by local markets. As incomes collapse and salaries remain irregular for years, many families have been forced into harmful coping mechanisms, including begging, skipping meals, sending children to work and early marriage for girls. Women are carrying a disproportionate burden, stepping in as primary providers. The economic crisis has taken a devastating toll on Yemeni families. Shops are stocked, yet millions cannot afford what sits on the shelves.
While global attention remains divided, Yemen is entering a critical tipping point in 2026, where 80% of the population lives below the poverty line and cannot access essential goods. Addressing the structural drivers of this economic decline, including the liquidity crisis and the erosion of the minimum food basket, is now a prerequisite for preventing further catastrophic hunger.
A crisis shaped by funding gaps and access constraints
The current deterioration of the humanitarian situation is driven by a combination of conflict dynamics, as well as the cumulative impact of funding cuts and collapse of essential services within an already constrained humanitarian space. Protection services have been especially affected, with large numbers of women, children, and IDPs and marginalized people losing access to critical support as coverage contracts.
A humanitarian field coordinator noted the broader implications:
“When funding drops this sharply, the impact is immediate. Services stop, outreach shrinks, and people fall through the cracks. What we are seeing now is not a short-term gap, but a lasting setback that will be felt by families and communities for years to come and will take years to reverse.”
Without immediate financial commitments and sustained political attention, preventable suffering will continue to increase, even in areas not experiencing active hostilities.
What is urgently needed
The crisis in Yemen reflects the cumulative impact of overlapping pressures that have steadily eroded communities’ resilience. Without timely support, the cost of inaction will be measured in irreparable damage to essential systems, deepening displacement, and long-term instability.
Peace cannot wait. Every day without it pushes more people closer to the edge. Aid is essential, but it is not enough. What is needed now is urgent, sustained action: renewed financial commitments to close critical gaps in health, protection, shelter, and food assistance; stronger humanitarian diplomacy to advance a political solution; and increased, flexible funding that reaches those most in need, including local actors who are best placed to deliver.
In accordance with International Humanitarian Law, all parties must also ensure the protection of aid workers and the removal of bureaucratic barriers that impede the delivery of life-saving assistance to the 22.3 million people currently in need.
Without urgent action, 2026 will be yet another year of deepening crisis. Families in Yemen cannot afford to wait. They deserve to look at 2026 with hope, as a year in which hardship eases and rebuilding begins.
This statement is endorsed by the following international non-governmental organizations:
- Read Foundation UK–Yemen (RFY)
- INSO
- International Medical Corps
- Concern Worldwide
- ACCEPT International
- Oxfam
- INTERSOS
- DORCAS
- ZOA
- Action For Humanity International
- CARE International
- MEHAD
- Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA)
- Humanity & Inclusion (HI)
- Action Contre la Faim (ACF)
- Relief International (RI)
- Muslim Hands
- International Rescue Committee (IRC)
- ADRA Yemen
- Première Urgence Internationale (PUI)
- Solidarités International (SI)
- Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC)
- Danish Refugee Council (DRC)
- Save the Children International (SCI)