Sana’a, 19 September 2018 – The European Union has provided UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, with EUR 2 million to provide urgent life-saving reproductive health and protection services to women and girls in Yemen. UNFPA estimates that nearly 3 million women of childbearing age in Yemen, of whom some 450,000 are likely to be pregnant, require humanitarian assistance. The funds from the European Union will support UNFPA programmes across seven governorates directly affected by the escalating conflict.

Between January and August 2018, UNFPA reached more than 350,000 women and girls with reproductive health and protection services. With the new funding, UNFPA will be able to reach more than 200,000 women and girls with life-saving emergency obstetric care and emergency supplies. The European Union contribution will also increase UNFPA’s capacity to offer services to survivors of different forms of violence, and provide immediate support in the form of transit kits, which contain basic items for people forcefully displaced by the conflict or stranded between frontlines.

“Due to the conflict and collapsing health services, Yemeni women and girls suffer one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the Middle East,” said Christos Stylianides, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management. “Providing life-saving emergency obstetric care, preventing complications before, after, and during child birth is one of the EU’s top humanitarian priorities in Yemen. This EU support will also help address the urgent protection and healthcare needs of conflict related survivors of gender-based violence.”

“The contribution from the European Union comes at a critical time as UNFPA addresses serious gaps in reproductive health and protection services across the country,” said Dr Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Executive Director. “This will allow UNFPA to scale up its programmes to reach tens of thousands of women and girls who need these life-saving interventions.”

UNFPA, through the 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, is appealing for $44.5 million for reproductive health and protection services for women and girls affected by the ongoing crisis. Only $22 million has so far been mobilised.

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UNFPA, delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

For more information, please contact

Fahmia Al-Fotih: Tel: +967 712224016; al-fotih@unfpa.org        

Lankani Sikurajapathy: Tel. +94773411614; sikurajapathy@unfpa.org