Escalating Crisis in Yemen: A Failure of International Humanitarian Aid Commitments

Author: Sabrina Ochoa, JD

October 15, 2026

Destroyed building in Sana'a, Yemen [Image credit: Fahd Sadi/Wikimedia Commons]

Introduction

Adopted in 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have aimed to organize international aid and development programming toward eliminating poverty and meeting other sustainable development benchmarks in all countries by 2030. But for Yemen, a nation wracked by decades-long civil wars, famine, and economic collapse, progress toward meeting the SDGs is nigh impossible. In its year-end report for 2025, the United Nations Regional Country Office in Yemen reported that 19.5 million Yemenis still require humanitarian assistance, despite years of programming and multilateral promises of aid through the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (YHNRP). In the face of such a complex, intensifying, and unending crisis, the international community, specifically well-resourced donor countries, must promptly and effectively address the interrelated challenges facing a war-torn and deteriorating Yemen.

Background of the Conflict

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen traces its origins to the 2011 revolution and the subsequent civil war that broke out in 2014, when Houthi forces occupied the nation’s capital of Sana’a. Then-President Hadi appealed to Yemen’s regional allies, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for support in ousting the Houthis, who in turn received support from Iran. Following years of war fostered by a Saudi-led coalition of regional forces (supported by the United States) and the Iran-backed Houthis, a fragile truce was brokered in 2022 in part by the United Nations, which still formally stands today. However, factions, namely the internationally recognized government (IRG) in eastern Yemen and the de facto authorities (DFA) controlling Sana’a, continue to clash in military encounters. Meanwhile, the country has weathered negative spillover effects from other regional developments, such as the ongoing conflict in Gaza. 

In addition to internal displacement and other material destruction caused by the armed conflict, the civil war has had indirect, systemwide effects that have devastated Yemen’s developmental progress and plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis. The civil war has caused the collapse of public health services, fostering widespread food insecurity and famine, and has destroyed critical infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems. Yemen’s economy has further contracted by over 50% since the start of the conflict in 2011, with the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita cut in half. Extreme currency volatility and inflation have followed, hampering the ability of Yemenis to maintain their livelihoods and preventing either the IRG or DFA from addressing rising poverty. 

Current State of the Crisis

As of 2026, Yemen is in a dire state with no sign of improvement across any of the metrics outlined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals that concretely address poverty, climate change, peacebuilding, and other issues related to socioeconomic rights. Under SDG 2 (the goal to eliminate hunger), for example, conditions in Yemen are severely worsening. 18 million people are affected by food insecurity throughout the country, while 2.2 million children under age 5 suffer from acute malnutrition. These figures are projected to increase as Yemen’s food systems have almost entirely collapsed after years of weathering shocks from the ongoing armed conflict and frequent natural disasters.

Indeed, Yemen is one of the most vulnerable nations in the world to the effects of climate change, which intensifies environmental disasters such as flooding, droughts, cyclones, and the rapid depletion of groundwater. All of these factors further imperil life-sustaining crops and agriculture-based livelihoods. These climate shocks, coupled with the effects of the armed conflict, have further impoverished rural populations and farmers. They also damage thousands of homes and critical infrastructure such as roads, irrigation, and sanitation systems. Under SDG 13 (climate action), Yemen is unable to make progress in addressing its unique vulnerability to these shocks due to the fragility of its existing infrastructure and unstable government. Thus, its population remains both conflict-affected and climate-affected.

While the 2022 UN-brokered truce remains in place, the political situation remains fragmented in Yemen, extending the effects of the internal armed conflict and producing a large and stagnant population of 4.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Instead of an integrated political system with reliable and cohesive provision of public services, there exists a dual-governance system operating independently across the territory of Yemen. This system is divided between the IRG based in Aden (southeast Yemen) and the DFA in the capital of Sana’a. On top of raising challenges to peacebuilding efforts between the factions (SDG 16), this fragmented governance system exacerbates obstacles for international actors, such as UN agencies. They impede operations and coordinated efforts with national actors to provide humanitarian, life-saving services to those in need. Further, the ongoing internal conflict has compromised UN efforts to provide this aid and sustainable, continuous programming, as its national staff has been repeatedly targeted for kidnapping and violence.  

As a result of these combined and amplified trends, more than 80% of the population in Yemen lives below the poverty line (SDG 1). This figure is projected to increase as Yemenis continue to be deprived of social services and health resources. Currently, over 70% of health facilities operating in Yemen rely on international support to function (SDG 3). There have been recent and recurring outbreaks of preventable communicable diseases such as measles and cholera. For those IDPs living in refugee camps, conditions are substandard. Overcrowding causes the breakdown of WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) systems (SDG 6). Some of the most vulnerable groups are women and youth (SDGs 4 and 5), where women face gender-based violence like female genital mutilation and human trafficking, while children face disruptions to their education and development. Approximately 4.5 million school-age children are not regularly attending school. 

UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for Yemen (2022-2026)

The humanitarian crisis has caused Yemen to lose decades’ worth of progress in achieving the SDGs, even with continuing UN interventions to achieve these goals by implementing a Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (SDCF) with the IRG. Originally planned for a two-year period, the UN SDCF has been extended from the start of the 2022 truce until the end of 2026. Over this period, joint efforts between UN agencies and the IRG will focus on increasing food security for impacted populations, developing Yemen’s economy, building systems for social service provision, and strengthening national institutions for more effective governance. 

However, these efforts to address the crisis through international aid and development programming have been hampered by a colossal failure of bilateral and multilateral donors to fulfill their commitments to sustainably fund Yemen’s recovery. While official development aid (ODA) to Yemen has overall increased over the course of the 15 years of conflict, recent and drastic cuts to aid have forced UN agencies and other organizations to substantially scale back programming that provides health services, improved shelter, and cash-based assistance to beneficiaries in Yemen. The UN-managed Yemen Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (YHNRP) has received less than a quarter of its initially promised funding, only $534 million USD out of $2.47 billion projected. Importantly, the YHNRP only covers a fraction of sustainable development needs in Yemen, with a focus on meeting immediate humanitarian needs of those facing the most severe effects of the crisis. Other donors, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, provide financing for development projects in Yemen, but the aid is intermittent and vulnerable to geopolitical shifts in the region pursuant to several other conflicts (e.g., Gaza, Iran). 

This disparity between funding and need translates to uneven impacts in Yemen. Analysis of international partnerships and efforts to make progress on the SDGs in Yemen reveals severe gaps and challenges, particularly under the UN’s principle commitment to “Leave No One Behind,” which aims to prioritize the most marginalized, excluded, and impoverished groups in that development context. In Yemen, women, children, refugees, and migrant populations continue to be excluded from the admittedly small gains in development and anti-poverty efforts implemented through aid programming. Moreover, those belonging to the Muhamasheen caste (translated literally, “the marginalized”) are continually widely discriminated against and face some of the highest rates of poverty, despite making up roughly 10% of Yemen’s population.  

As the crisis continues, meager development aid and intermittent (or interrupted) international interventions will not be able to effectively address the disparate impact of the crisis on women, children, IDPs, and the Muhamasheen. Effective implementation of long-term plans to stem the Yemen crisis, like the UN SDCF and the YNHRP, requires sustainable and predictable financing from well-resourced donor countries like the United States (which recently slashed its humanitarian aid to the UN by 88%), members of the European Union, and Gulf States involved in the Saudi Arabia-led coalition backing the Yemen IRG. 

Coordination between Development, Humanitarian Aid, and Peacebuilding

From a sustainable development perspective, Yemen remains stuck in a cycle of fragility, ever vulnerable to spillover effects from nearby regional conflicts, climate change-related environmental shocks, and domestic economic volatility. When Yemen experiences these external and internal events, their negative impacts are compounded by the country’s significant reliance on international aid, the ongoing armed conflict, the collapse of national institutions, and large-scale internal displacement that have followed the conflict. This presents a complex setting for aid organizations and international actors, caught between meeting immediate humanitarian needs and trying to improve systemic problems that, left unaddressed, undermine whatever gains are achieved through development programming. Amid a global backdrop of drastic cuts to humanitarian aid and to multilateral institutions, most notably by the United States under the present administration, effectively addressing the Yemeni crisis is further complicated.

When siloed, approaches to the Yemeni crisis through the lenses of sustainable development, humanitarian response, and peacebuilding are constrained. Realistically, there are limits to what humanitarian aid can achieve on a structural level to strengthen and sustain national institutions. Yemen needs to address its unique vulnerability to climate change and weather the region’s longstanding military conflicts and political instability. Aid earmarked for certain development metrics meant to achieve long-term progress has suffered from significant underfunding. The UN Regional Country Office in Yemen reported that it received $778.5 million out of the $1.2 billion required to implement its programming under the SDCF in 2025, leading to severe underfunding of programs aimed at improving access to education (SDG 4), infrastructure (SDG 9), and facilitating peacebuilding (SDG 16). Some of this disparity can be attributed to political shifts in donor countries’ funding priorities and approaches, which is reflected on the ground in Yemen by interruptions in the continuity of the services provided to the populations highly reliant on this aid. Further, peacebuilding efforts between the IRG and DFA are marred by instability and setbacks in recent efforts to facilitate dialogue between the factions. Yemen lacks a reliable system of governance and rule of law to form the basis of effective humanitarian response and sustainable development.

Future interventions, therefore, need to combine aid and development efforts into what the UN SDCF coins the “humanitarian-development-peace” (HDP) nexus. This framework uses humanitarian aid as a stepping stone to meet the immediate needs of Yemeni populations while also building a foundation for further peacebuilding and sustainable development. For example, focusing on the development of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure meets the immediate needs of those most vulnerable to the current crisis, such as IDPs in refugee camps, children, and women with gendered health needs. This focus also builds Yemen’s capacity in the long term to strengthen its public health and climate-related disaster responses, and minimize the negative spillover effects of these unmet needs on the peacebuilding processes. Integrating these approaches under the HDP nexus can also bolster humanitarian responses to the Yemeni crisis so that they survive political shifts in donor countries’ support and volatility in the international aid system as a whole.

Conclusion

The SDGs were fashioned in response to the limitations of their precursors, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Critics often highlight the goals’ wide scope and costly monitoring processes as harmful to actually addressing the challenges facing conflict-affected and fragile states like Yemen. These criticisms hold significant weight, especially as the 2030 deadline looms and Yemen is farther from meeting these benchmarks than it was over a decade ago. 

SDGs and the corresponding UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework can guide short-term action by donor countries and the international community as a whole to address overwhelmingly rising poverty, immediate health needs, and food insecurity of Yemenis suffering from the crisis. Building a stable foundation will bolster Yemen’s development gains and the overall well-being of its population. This will pause the cycle of fragility that entrenches inequality and humanitarian need. Longer-term solutions to the protracted and multidimensional situation in Yemen need to be adopted. The most important long-term solution is consistent funding for programs that address multiple factors of the humanitarian emergency, like the country’s vulnerability to climate change, economic shocks, and ripple effects from nearby military conflicts. It needs to be recognized that these issues are interrelated and indivisible. Without this shift in international reaction to the Yemen crisis, the hope for progress and resolution will remain a dream rather than a reality.

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Glossary

• Climate shocks: sudden and severe weather events that disrupt food supplies, economies, and public safety

• De facto authorities: led by the Houthis, this is the organization challenging the internationally recognized government, and which governs much of the country; based in the capital of Sana’a

• Food insecurity: conditions where individuals cannot access adequate, safe, and nutritious food necessary for their growth and development

• GDP per capita: a nation’s total economic output over its total population, which reflects the average standard of living

• Houthis: a Shiite movement that emerged in northern Yemen in the 1980s, which seeks to challenge Yemen’s Sunni majority government

• Humanitarian aid: assistance that promotes human welfare and meets basic needs

• Humanitarian-development-peace nexus: an approach to funding that integrates humanitarian aid, long-term development, and peacebuilding programs to better address interrelated causes of the crisis and stabilize the target country

• Internally displaced persons: individuals forced to flee their homes due to unrest or conflict but who remain within the borders of their country

• Internationally recognized government: backed by the United Nations and the Saudi-led regional coalition, claims official authority over the country but has been fragmented by the conflict; based in the city of Aden

• Leave No One Behind: the commitment underlying the 2030 SDGs that development programming should be focused on the most vulnerable and marginalized populations

• Millennium Development Goals: the precursor to the SDGs, focused only on developing countries from 2000 to 2015

• Muhamasheen: an ethnic minority in Yemen at the bottom of a social caste system

• Official development aid: government aid given for the economic development and welfare of developing countries

• Peacebuilding: a broad set of processes aimed at preventing the recurrence of violent conflict, and building structural, institutional and social conditions for sustainable peace

• Sana’a: Yemen’s capital

• UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework: an agreement between the UN and authorities in Yemen to implement UN development programming in the country and meet the SDGs

• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: 17 goals aimed at meeting present development needs, like ending poverty and reducing inequality, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, such as through climate action and peacebuilding

• UN-brokered truce: in 2022, the UN mediated the peace process between the IRG and DFA, de-escalating the military action between parties

• WASH systems: infrastructure that guarantees access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation facilities, and good hygiene practices

• Yemen Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan: a plan developed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to prioritize the most urgent problems of the crisis, and dedicate funding from international donors for targeted programmes