The World Bank announced in a statement on Monday that it has approved additional funding of $207 million for Yemen to address the issues of food insecurity and chronic malnutrition in the impoverished country, which has been suffering from a brutal conflict for years. The new funding, provided as a grant from the International Development Association of the World Bank, will help sustain and expand the ongoing original project. It is expected that approximately 1.8 million Yemeni families will benefit from the new funding.
The statement quoted Tania Meyer, the World Bank's country director for Yemen, saying, "This additional funding reflects the World Bank's unwavering commitment to improving the lives of Yemenis caught in the midst of multiple crises, including conflict, food insecurity, and climate-related emergencies." She added, "We aim to provide a lifeline to those in dire need and lay the foundation for a more sustainable and resilient future for the Yemeni people."
This is the second additional funding the country has received under the emergency project aimed at enhancing social protection and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in Yemen, which the World Bank launched in December 2020 with a value of $503.9 million. The bank had approved an initial additional funding of $300 million under the same project in March 2022.
According to the World Bank, around 21.6 million people in Yemen need some form of humanitarian assistance in 2023, with 19 million citizens either facing a crisis, an emergency situation, or catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
