The Yemeni Aid Worker:.....

If you have spent fifteen years of your life working in humanitarian response pulling families back from the edge of poverty, hunger, and displacement who bears responsibility for rescuing you when the very system you served collapses?

This is not a rhetorical question ,It is the question that thousands of humanitarian workers across Yemen are asking themselves every single morning, in a silence so heavy that no one beyond their walls seems to hear it.

Imagine devoting your best years to serving your community to reaching the most impoverished and vulnerable people in a country trapped in an unrelenting cycle of conflict. You taught families how to rebuild their livelihoods and delivered emergency assistance in the most dangerous and inaccessible areas. You built a professional network out of daily perseverance, years of trust, and hard-earned relationships. Then one morning you wake up to find that your organization has suspended operations, your salary has stopped, and your expertise has nowhere left to go in allover the country!

This is not a hypothetical scenario but this is the daily reality for thousands of Yemen's humanitarian professionals today.

$16 billion has been channeled to Yemen since 2015 ,the world's largest sustained humanitarian response over an entire decade. Yet funding is now eroding at a pace not seen since 2016.

The Collapse of the Funding Architecture

For the past five years, the United States was Yemen's largest donor by a significant margin. In 2024 alone, USAID disbursed approximately $620 million to Yemen, of which $580 million went directly to humanitarian assistance.

Then came the decision to freeze US foreign assistance in early 2025 and its effects were immediate. By March 2025, dozens of shelter and protection centers had closed their doors, and the operations of WFP and major UN agencies had begun to shrink or halt entirely in all over Yemen.

The European Union, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Germany have continued their support but the gap left by the American withdrawal is simply too wide to be filled by alternative donors alone especially at a time when humanitarian needs are simultaneously rising in a very conflict sensitive context .

Alternative Funding: Why It Cannot Close the Gap

A fair question arises: is the Gulf region Saudi Arabia in particular continuing to support Yemen?

The answer is yes, and that support is real and valued but the picture is more complicated than it appears. Since 2013, Saudi Arabia has channeled a cumulative total of $9 billion into global humanitarian response, with Yemen consistently at the core of its priorities. At its peak in 2019, 89% of Saudi Arabia's total humanitarian funding was directed to Yemen. However, between 2019 and 2023, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait reduced their Yemen contributions by approximately 90%, 98%, and 99% respectively. Then came an abrupt reversal; in 2024, Saudi Arabia was the second-largest donor that injected $817 million into Yemen.

The support is valued but the methodology is fundamentally different than international community to Yemen. Gulf funding primarily flows through central bank support and currency stabilization, direct budget transfers to government ministries, and selected institutional partners like government and some local NGOs. This approach, while significant in macroeconomic terms, does not absorb the trained field workforce and grass roots experts. It does not re-employ the thousands of experienced professionals laid off by international organizations. The gap left by the contraction in direct operational humanitarian funding is wide, visible, and acutely felt compounded by the systematic targeting of humanitarian personnel by de facto authorities in certain areas of the country.

Even if we were to combine the full contributions of the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Germany, their combined total would still not cover the gap created by the US funding freeze alone , let alone the broader cumulative decline in international humanitarian financing over the past five years.

Key figures at a glance:

• United States (2024): ~$620M historically the largest donor.
• Saudi Arabia (2024): $817M -a substantial contribution, delivered through a fundamentally different modality.
• United Kingdom (2015–2024): over £1 billion in total since the crisis began.

Stories from the Field

Beyond the statistics, allow me to introduce two real people from this reality. The first is a colleague I know personally over 10 years of field experience in development project management and economic recovery programs. A genuine track record, a strong institutional network, and a professional portfolio that speaks for itself. Today, he sits at home without work, ever since the projects of the organization he served for years came to a halt, he is not asking for charity. He is asking for an opportunity worthy of the expertise he has built.

The second is another colleague with more than 14 years of continuous humanitarian work, with field experience spanning Syria, Iraq (Baghdad), and Libya. Consider the depth of professional competency this person carries, yet he faces a painful paradox: he cannot return to Yemen due to the ongoing conflict and the de facto authorities' practice of detaining humanitarian staff ,and he cannot find employment abroad that values what he brings. He is suspended between a country he cannot go back to and a world that has yet to find a place for him.

These are not isolated cases ,they are a portrait of an entire generation of Yemen's humanitarian talent.

The Full Dimensions of the Loss : What the Reports Don't Measure

The crisis does not strike the Yemeni humanitarian worker from a single direction, It strikes from every direction, simultaneously.

• Professionally: The environment that shaped them no longer exists. Institutions are fragmenting, the systems they mastered are being dismantled, and years of accumulated expertise are being quietly erased infront of their eyes.
• Financially: The humanitarian sector was once one of Yemen's highest-paying employment environments, offering salaries in foreign currency. Today, those same professionals are among the most economically vulnerable. Savings built over years are dissolving. There is no absorbing sector, no functioning market for their skills , only nepotism and informal networks operating in a legal and institutional vacuum.
• From the perspective of equity: Decades of professional excellence offer no protection against exclusion. The scarce positions that remain are filled through personal connections, not merit. Colleagues with fewer qualifications advance through patronage networks. The sense of institutional injustice becomes a permanent companion.
• Psychologically ,and this is the most dangerous dimension: A person who has given their best years begins to ask themselves, in silence: "Why did I continue? Was it worth it? What did I actually build?" Chronic fatigue, a deep loss of trust in the future, and the pervasive feeling that effort yields nothing -this is the fuel that drives the silent brain drain of experienced professionals out of Yemen.
• At the family level: In Yemen's context, this person is often the pillar not only of their immediate family, but of siblings, extended relatives, and dependents across multiple households. They maintain the appearance of strength for those who look to them -they used to be in a position of giving, and now they conceal their own fragility in the face of the surrounding chaos. That contradiction exhausts the spirit long before it exhausts the body.

A Personal Perspective: The Deepest Paradox in a Country of Paradoxes

There is an unbearable irony that deserves to be spoken aloud: The person who spent their career helping the most vulnerable families recover their livelihoods is now living the very crisis they were trained to address.

The economic recovery officer needs economic recovery. The one who protected others from vulnerability now stands at the edge of vulnerability themselves.

And herein lies the deeper risk: when this professional cohort collapses, it is not only individual careers that are lost. An entire ecosystem of field expertise- institutional memory, local knowledge, community trust, and operational capacity is lost with it. That cannot easily be rebuilt once the funding eventually returns, if it returns.

A Call to Action: Because Silence Is Not an Option

If you believe that humanitarian and development professionals with deep international experience deserve protection and recognition, here is my personal call, grounded in lived experience:

• If you work in an international organization or donor agency: Build structured transition mechanisms into your program exit strategies for staff affected by funding cuts -not as charity, but as a sound investment in preserving the human capital your programs depend on.
• If you work in a regional or Gulf organization: Open a serious conversation about how Yemeni field expertise can be meaningfully integrated into your programs -on the basis of competence and transparent, open competition, not simply personal networks or imported external expertise. Announce positions openly. Compete fairly.
• If you are a colleague in the humanitarian, relief, or development sector: Do not give in to despair. Share this article. Make these voices heard. Acknowledging the crisis is the first step in confronting it. And connect with the local consultant network at ATYAF CONSULTING for local consultancy opportunities (www.atyafye.com) _ because collaboration is how we move forward, and opportunity must be for all.
• If you are a policymaker or researcher: Document this phenomenon. The loss of trained humanitarian professionals and institutional expertise is a long-term strategic loss -one that will shape Yemen's future long after the funding crisis has passed.

Finally , What we have lived through over the past fifteen years- navigating conflict, building resilience, adapting to constant upheaval, and continuing to serve despite everything is itself one of the most powerful lessons we can offer the world today and to generations that will follow.

Written by: Mazen Saif | Humanitarian Sector Professional, and Consultant in Yemen

Sources: OCHA Yemen 2025 | ALNAP Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2025 | UK Parliament Research Briefing CBP-9326 | Save the Children September 2023 | Devex December 2024 | Security Council Report March 2025 | Congress.gov CRS Yemen February 2026

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