Attachments
I. Overview
This note presents an assessment of the consequences of the three-month U.S Stop Work Order on protection programming across Yemen. The findings are based on responses from 38 protection partners to a survey led by the Yemen Protection Cluster and its Areas of Responsibility (AoRs). Of these, 18 organizationsreported a direct impact, affecting 75 critical protection projects across 20 governorates and 254 districts.
The Stop Work Order has frozen over $24 million in protection funding in Yemen, disrupting life-saving protection interventions that are essential to the safety, dignity, and survival of more than 2 million crisis-affected people including internally displaced persons (IDPs), persons living with disabilities, women and girls at heightened GBV risks, children, minority groups (primarily Al Muhamahseen), and other individuals experiencing acute vulnerability.
Protection programming plays a life-saving role in Yemen’s complex and protracted crisis. The impacted activities include:
• Protection monitoring, which identifies and enables timely response to escalating and life-threatening risks,
• Facilitation of civil documentation, critical for accessing essential government services as well as humanitarian assistance, legal protection, and freedom of movement,
• Critical Child protection services, including prevention of child recruitment, family tracing, and case management,
• Mine action activities, including land clearance, Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE), and victim assistance, remain vital across areas impacted by explosive hazards,
• Gender-Based Violence (GBV) response, such as safe spaces, legal aid, and psychosocial support,
• Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), which plays a crucial life-saving role by helping individuals cope with the psychological toll of displacement, violence, and loss. In the absence of support, people facing severe distress may be pushed to dangerous coping mechanisms or experience significant deterioration in mental-health. The disruption of MHPSS services risks leaving individuals without critical care essential for survival.
• Eviction prevention efforts, essential to shielding the most vulnerable from homelessness, exploitation, and secondary displacement.