Challenges in Yemen

In Yemen, the conflict, pandemic, and natural disasters have added layers of vulnerability for women and girls and exacerbated existing gender inequalities specially among disabled, displaced, and marginalized women and girls. In 2021, Yemen ranked 155 of 156 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, depicting huge gender disparities.

Yemeni women remain significantly under-represented in public and elected office, holding only 4.1 per cent of managerial and decision-making positions and have minimal leadership roles in national and local peace agreements.

Among the consequences of gender inequality in Yemen, women may be subject to restricted movement, female genital mutilation, and gender-based violence including early and forced marriage. Moreover, women’s participation and leadership in the public sector and formal and informal paid work is low as the rate of women’s participation in the workforce in Yemen is only 6 per cent. And structural inequality impedes women and girls' access to basic services, leading to a massive gender gap in literacy and basic education and high maternal mortality rates.

Conflict and gender inequality

Conflict has magnified socio-economic disparities, exhausted resources and given way to negative coping strategies. Although child marriage is not a new phenomenon, rates increased from 32 per cent to 66 per cent in 2017 alone – five years into Yemen’s ongoing conflict.

Conflict can also strain personal relationships. According to a recent survey of women across nine Yemeni governorates, family members – particularly husbands – are the most likely perpetrators. Although reporting gender-based violence is discouraged in Yemen, it reportedly increased 36 per cent in 2016 than in 2017 and are continuing to rise due to economic, health, and social stressors.

COVID-19 Pandemic and gender inequality

The epidemic has disproportionate health, social and economic impacts on women and girls. Employment and care services for female workers in general and domestic workers in particular are affected. The outbreak profoundly impacted women’s ability to maintain their livelihoods. In this emergency context, the risks of social and domestic challenges that women and girls face increase exponentially. Additionally, the pandemic’s economic impacts are likely to increase sexual exploitation and child marriage, leaving women and girls in fragile economies and refugee contexts particularly vulnerable.

Responding to crisis

Gender equality is critical to stabilization, early recovery, and sustainable development and is a critical component integrated into every UNDP Yemen project. Equally, gender is central to UNDP’s work at large – and to the entire UN system – and is reflected within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UNDP Strategic Plan  2022-2025, as well as in the UNDP New Corporate Gender Strategy.

The new UNDP Strategic Plan is structured around a “3x6x3” approach – three directions of change, six signature solutions, and three enablers – and create a clear directional framework. Included in the signature solutions is gender equality, confronting the structural obstacles to gender equality and strengthening women’s economic empowerment and leadership.

In a conflict situation such as Yemen, effective stabilization and development requires inclusion of the entire population. Through our range of projects and gender equality initiatives, UNDP Yemen seeks to enable all citizens – including women, men, girls, and boys – to realize their full potential, and bring about sustainable peace for all. UNDP Yemen identifies and addresses disparities between women and men by tackling structural gender inequality issues and underrepresentation of women.

We must be aware of how language can either enforce or subvert gender inequalities. As such - for maximum reach and impact - UNDP Yemen has developed diverse communication materials to aid in mainstreaming gender communications. Our projects and programmes use gender-sensitive communication to help ensure equal representation of women and men within both our implementation and communications. Furthermore, as part of our mandate to promote gender equality, UNDP Yemen works to highlight both women and men in non-traditional roles. All of these actions help establish critical and viable platforms for all voices to be heard.

Gender Sensitive Communications Materials  

Our Interventions