United States Announces Nutrition Partnership in Yemen to Boost Child Health

YEMEN, November 28, 2022—Today, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced a $4.8 million program in partnership with the Ministry of Public Health and Population to help Yemeni children recover from malnutrition and provide families with support to prevent malnutrition and growth stunting.

The two-year, USAID Yemen Nutrition Program, implemented by John Snow Inc. under the USAID-funded global MOMENTUM health consortium, will help families, communities, and health care providers gain the skills and resources they need to support healthy diets, treat malnutrition, and ensure sufficient nutrition for children and families.

“This program complements USAID’s emergency food relief to develop resilient health and nutritional services and systems to prevent and treat malnutrition today and in the years to come,” said Brandy Witthoft, acting USAID/Yemen Country Director.

Malnutrition rates in Yemen are among the highest in the world. Forty-six percent of children under five years of age in Yemen suffer from stunting and nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition; 400,000 of those children face severe acute malnutrition. More than 1.2 million pregnant and lactating women suffer from acute malnutrition.

In Yemen, 19.7 million people lack access to basic health services. Only 51 percent of the health facilities in Yemen are fully functioning and of those, most lack operational specialists, equipment, and basic medicines. These gaps impact services for the most vulnerable, especially women and children.

USAID, which has operated in Yemen since 1959, has provided over one billion dollars in humanitarian relief and development support in 2022, including $790 million for nutrition and food security.

For more information about USAID in Yemen, visit: www.usaid.gov/Yemen