Question Period Note: Canada's Humanitarian Response in Yemen

How is Canada responding to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen?

• Canada is deeply concerned by the situation in Yemen, the deterioration of modest gains made in recent years and the humanitarian impact on civilians, particularly women and children, who continue to bear the brunt of the conflict and its consequences.
• Since the start of the conflict in 2015, Canada has provided over $220 million in humanitarian funding to support food assistance, clean water and sanitation, shelter, protection and health care, including sexual and reproductive health services.
• For example, in 2019, Canada's support helped partners provide reproductive health services to more than 330,000 Yemeni women and girls.
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After five years of continuous conflict, Yemen is currently the world's largest humanitarian crisis with 24.3 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2020. The combined effects of ongoing fighting, impediments to access for humanitarians, a reduction in funding to humanitarian operations, the availability of vital goods, a serious economic crisis, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are pushing 10 million people to the brink of famine.

Basic service provision in Yemen is collapsing, including critical water, sanitation and hygiene and health services, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks such as cholera, dengue fever, diphtheria, and most recently polio. COVID-19 also continues to spread across the country. While there are concerns about underreporting, the official case fatality rate in Yemen remains the highest in the world at 28%. Yemen also has the fourth largest number of displaced persons in the world, with a total of 3.6 million people displaced since 2015. Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, are frequent, in clear violation of international humanitarian law. Humanitarian organizations also face significant bureaucratic constraints to the effective delivery and monitoring of assistance.

To date in 2020, Canada has provided $40M in humanitarian funding to United Nations agencies, the Red Cross Movement and non-governmental organizations. This funding is helping provide food assistance, healthcare (including sexual and reproductive health services), water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition support, protection, shelter, and logistics.

Through its 2020 support to organizations such as WFP, UNFPA and UNICEF, Canada helped prevent famine through emergency food assistance to approximately 12 million conflict-affected people in Yemen, and provide reproductive health services to more than 330,000 women and girls.

Canada is supporting flexible humanitarian funding for partners in Yemen through its contribution to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), and also announced $84.5M for global COVID-19 humanitarian appeals, both of which have been used for humanitarian operations in Yemen.

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