In March 2026, UN reports estimated that 22.3 million people required humanitarian assistance, including 5.2 million who were internally displaced. Since August 2026, renewed conflict has driven a further 250,000 people from their homes, many of them repeatedly, while undermining the services and livelihoods that families depend on to survive. With displacement still rising, lifesaving assistance alone cannot restore the local systems on which communities rely. UNDP is already acting.

UNDP’s response will operate through two mutually reinforcing tracks: rapid early recovery in conflict- and displacement-affected areas, and protection of institutional continuity and resilience in areas exposed to increasing pressures on services and livelihoods. As conditions evolve, locations may move between these tracks based on evidence of conflict exposure, displacement, service disruption, and local institutional functionality.

As an immediate contribution, UNDP has allocated US$1 million from its core resources to the Yemen Rapid Recovery Response (YRRR): Emergency Employment and Community Recovery. The YRRR will be implemented in coordination with local authorities and will provide temporary paid work to around 1,200 displaced people and members of host communities. This support will reach around 7,000 people and rehabilitate priority community assets in Aden and Lahj.

The YRRR is expected to generate around 18,000 workdays, improve 14 km of roads, and protect and rehabilitate 35 hectares of agricultural land. Planned interventions include road paving, drainage, waste removal, greening, irrigation channel rehabilitation, and agricultural protection.

Beyond this immediate initiative, UNDP is in the process of scaling up its interventions, where mandates, access, and donor agreements permit, to extend this support. Together, these efforts will allow us to reach more than one million people.