Aden, Yemen: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) welcomes our new Yemen-focused partnership with the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. To kick off the partnership, the Kuwait Fund provided a generous US$ 2.5 million to a new UNDP project called Renewable Energy Improve Access to Health Services and Livelihood Opportunities (HEAL).

As Yemen continues to be one of the world’s worst humanitarian and development crises, the country has suffered from lack of access to basic services such as energy. This issue plagues not only private residences and businesses, but also critical services such as healthcare facilities. Due to price hikes and fuel scarcity, as well as the ongoing conflict, barely half of the hospitals and clinics in Yemen are fully operational. The HEAL project – being implemented between September 2022 to June 2023 – will work to address this lack of continued energy access in critical healthcare facilities in Abyan, Aden, Hajjah, Lahj, and Sana’a.

“Projects like HEAL are important to ensure the continuity of providing healthcare services in Yemen,” says Dr. Qassim Bahibah, Yemen’s Minister of Public Health and Population. “There are health facilities that consume great amounts of fuel a month to ensure uninterrupted healthcare services. This project will help reduce the costs and sustain services.”

Furthermore, with an estimated 40 per cent of households losing their main source of income since the conflict began in 2015, the HEAL project will focus on increasing income opportunities for women and youth. Women have not only increased economic pressures as they are also being pushed into needing to provide for their families with often have limited skills. The HEAL project will help update and develop critical skills for both groups to earn lifesaving income by helping develop businesses, building business skills, and connecting them to the local markets.

Building upon UNDP’s previous experience and success recognized for the Ashden Award for Humanitarian Energy in 2020 – and which was featured in BBC’s 100 Women: 2020 – the HEAL project will support the development of 50 solar energy micro-grid businesses in the targeted Yemeni governorates to sell electricity to provide clean energy for household and business use, allowing villagers to both benefit at home and work while caring for their families.

The Kuwait funding is critical to reaching approximately, 205,000 Yemenis (106,600 men and 98,400 women). “As the first UNDP partnership with Kuwait in Yemen, the generous funding will enable the HEAL project to address critical and urgent issues in the targeted areas,” says Mr. Auke Lootsma, UNDP’s Resident Representative. “This is the beginning of an important partnership that will serve to improve immediate humanitarian circumstances as well as medium and long-term development solutions for the healthcare system, reduced energy poverty, and improved economy of Yemenis.”

About HEAL:

Funded by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, UNDP’s Renewable Energy Improve Access to Health Services and Livelihood Opportunities (HEAL) project addresses the lack of access to energy in health facilities as well as the lack of income opportunities for Yemeni women and youth.

About UNDP:

UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in nearly 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. http://www.undp.org

For more information about HEAL, contact Khaled Magead, UNDP Programme Analyst Khaled.Magead@undp.org