In 2021 Yemen ranked again as one of the five largest IDP situations worldwide, with more than 4.3 million individuals displaced at least once, 285,000 during the year and negligible numbers able to return. UNHCR Yemen, therefore, reconfirmed its footprint as a core IDP operation, with a proportion of resources devoted to these activities. UNHCR Yemen continued to be guided by UNHCR’s global IDP Policy and by its IDP Protection Strategy 2020-2021.
UNHCR continued to strengthen qualitative and quantitative assessments at household and community levels to gather information on living conditions, socioeconomic situation and protection needs of IDPs; to enhance timely identification and referral of persons with specific needs; to determine eligibility for assistance; and to produce trends analysis informing evidence-based programming and advocacy. UNHCR assessed some 190,000 IDPs HHs in 2021.
UNHCR maintained a network of 12 Community Centres to deliver a range of protection services. This included gender-based violence prevention and response (identification and case management, where feasible); social and empowerment activities for women; child protection services (recreational activities, psychosocial support, referrals to specialized partners and line ministries); legal awareness and counselling on civil-related issues; psychosocial first aid/psychosocial support to address distress created by the cumulative effects of conflict, displacement, and COVID-19. Some 138,000 IDPs were supported through protection interventions, also by increasing mobile teams/activities to remote areas.
CCCM remained a core component of UNHCR IDP interventions, given the growing presence of IDP sites as a feature of Yemen displacement. At the end of 2021, almost 1.5 million IDPs lived in more than 2,200 sites, of which only some 25% could be reached by humanitarian actors. UNHCR and its partners progressively increased the number of IDP sites where life-saving assistance and services were provided or coordinated, reaching 310 sites hosting some 315,000 individuals by end-year, and supported designated authorities in CCCM roles.
As socioeconomic vulnerabilities increased with the protracted crisis, cash assistance complemented protection services in the IDP response. In 2021 UNHCR Yemen cash programme for IDPs grew further to become one of the most extensive cash programmes globally. Some $73.5 million was devoted to unrestricted cash and cash streams such as rental subsidies, winterization, and emergency cash, reaching more than 207,000 HHs and making Yemen the second largest UNHCR IDP cash operation worldwide.
Considering the ongoing emergency and the protracted displacement, various typologies of shelter assistance were devised. More than 93,300 newly displaced HHs and those living in sites continued to obtain emergency shelter and Core Relief Items and more than 9,000 HHs received transitional shelters. At the end of 2021, UNHCR revised its strategy by introducing diversified types of shelter, by prioritizing forms of transitional shelter support and by putting emphasis on localized and environment-friendly shelter solutions.
Community-based approaches continued to guide interventions. More than 150 Community-based Protection Networks (CBPNs) were active countrywide to identify vulnerable IDPs, foster community support and enhance two-way communications between IDP communities, UNHCR and its partners, including through community feedback mechanisms.
UNHCR encouraged the humanitarian leadership to devote more attention towards durable solutions for Yemen’s protracted displacement, including by proposing a forum for strategic discussion. Since the COP 2021, UNHCR incorporated solutions-supportive activities into several aspects of its IDP programme, including a focus to housing, land and property issues, unconditional cash, adapted shelter strategies and mobile interventions.