What are the repercussions of stopping US aid on the humanitarian situation in Yemen?

Aid officials and government authorities in Yemen said the decision to suspend foreign aid provided through the US Agency for International Development seriously threatens the lives of millions of Yemenis and exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in a country ranked as one of the poorest in the Arab world.

Yemenis and aid organizations fear a severe shortage of food and commodity stocks at a time when millions of people are suffering from malnutrition, high food prices and poor services due to the 10-year conflict that has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, according to the United Nations.

Since 2015, the World Food Programme has been providing aid to Yemen to prevent famine, relying on the aid the UN programme receives from institutions and countries, most notably the United States.

The US State Department said in February 2023 that the volume of US assistance to Yemen since the beginning of the conflict there through the US Agency for Development and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration amounted to more than $5.4 billion.

But with living conditions deteriorating, the United Nations appealed to donors last month for $2.47 billion to support the humanitarian response plan in Yemen during 2025, noting that about 20 million people there need humanitarian support while millions suffer from hunger and face the risk of contracting life-threatening diseases.

US President Donald Trump's signing of an executive order on January 20 suspending foreign aid funding for 90 days pending a review of funding policies has thrown many charities and relief organizations working in Yemen into disarray.

The suspension of US aid comes at a time when Trump's decision to re-list the Yemeni Houthi movement as a "foreign terrorist organization" comes into effect, further complicating matters in a country already suffering from deteriorating economic and living conditions, a collapsing currency, a lack of services, and a war that has brought one of the poorest Arab countries to the brink of famine.

Widespread repercussions

Officials at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor in Aden told Reuters that the repercussions of the American decision are beginning to appear, as the ministry has received dozens of letters in the past few days from local relief and development organizations stating that they will stop or reduce their activities and lay off hundreds of their employees.

The officials added that most of these organizations operate in areas controlled by the Houthi group in the north, center and west of the country, which are densely populated.

Officials declined to provide further details, but stressed that the suspension of organizations' activities and the layoff of hundreds of employees would contribute to the rise in unemployment rates in the country, which are already high.

Abdullah Sami feels sad and regretful about the decision to lay him off from a local relief organization that receives funding from the United States Agency for International Development. Like many of his colleagues, they lost their jobs and became without a source of income in light of the Yemeni government’s cessation of hiring young people since the outbreak of the war years ago.

Sami, 32, a resident of Aden, told Reuters that he never thought the United States would stop funding Yemen, and that he would lose a good income from his work in information technology and technology, which helped him support his small family of a wife and two children.

Local and UN reports indicate that the stifling economic crisis in Yemen has caused youth unemployment to jump to about 60 percent, compared to 14 percent before the war, and raised the inflation rate to about 45 percent and poverty to about 78 percent.

The head of a local relief organization in the capital, Sanaa, who asked not to be named, warned that stopping USAID aid would not only affect beneficiaries of relief programs but would also harm workers in the sector, who number in the hundreds.

Houthi areas

Economic researcher at the Yemen and Gulf Center for Studies, Wafiq Saleh, believes that the suspension of US humanitarian aid programs in Yemen portends further deterioration of the situation and the expansion of hunger in the country.

He said that the risks of this step on the humanitarian situation are multiplied because it coincides with deteriorating humanitarian conditions, the reduction of other international aid programmes provided to Yemen, in addition to the deterioration of the overall economy, the exacerbation of the deficit in the state’s finances and the dispersion of local resources.

But some residents of Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthis, do not pay much attention to the matter and believe that the decline or cessation of the American agency’s activity “will have little impact in light of the difficult humanitarian situation the country is experiencing.”

"The presence of the American agency is almost non-existent in terms of its direct relationship with the people. It works on civil society human rights organizations, which are mostly not humanitarian organizations," Mahdi Mohammed al-Bahri, a resident of Sanaa, told Reuters.

Zaid Al-Hassan, who also lives in Sana'a, agrees with him and says, "The new American decision does not concern us because our situation is very difficult and we have not received any relief during the past period from the American agency or any other relief organizations."

The United Nations says more than 80 percent of Yemen's population needs aid, and millions are on the brink of widespread famine.

The World Food Programme says it provided assistance to 15.3 million people, or 47 percent of Yemen's population of 35.6 million, in 2023.

Source: Reuters