Yemeni Civil Society and the Impact of COVID-19: A Survey of Perceptions and Responses to the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Yemen at an extraordinarily difficult time, further compounding the challenges faced by a fragile country already beset by conflict, malnutrition, water scarcity, and a general lack of basic services. Local authorities acted, at different paces and through differing approaches, to prevent the pandemic from overwhelming the country. Yemen’s Internationally-Recognised Government closed the country’s borders and cancelled the academic year for all school grades. However, the prevention and mitigation efforts are complicated by the reality that 80 percent of Yemenis rely on some form of emergency aid. The COVID-19 outbreak is further diverting critically needed human and material resources away from already weak and underfunded essential services, including assistance to people with disabilities, the elderly, refugees and migrants, women and girls, and other vulnerable groups. COVID-19 is but one of a myriad of chronic health challenges currently facing Yemen, where 50 percent of the medical infrastructure is described as non-operational. Coupled with the inability to provide basic medical care and manage basic illnesses, Yemen’s public healthcare system has also struggled to contain recent outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever. The apparent decline of reported COVID-19 cases after Eid does not offer much guarantee in the face of a lack of testing and inadequate medical infrastructure which, among other consequences, keeps Yemenis away from hospitals.

In order to understand how Yemeni civil society is coping, adapting and responding to the challenges posed by COVID-19 and the governmental and local authorities’ response to the health emergency, ARK conducted a survey with representatives of fourteen Yemeni organisations active throughout the country. Eleven of these organisations identified themselves as Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and three as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). All the organisations surveyed focus on internally displaced persons (IDPs), youth and other vulnerable groups. The survey was conducted between May 22 and June 22, and the objective was to identify and raise awareness of the needs of Yemeni organisations by sharing these results with a broad range of stakeholders.

All respondents acknowledged that their organisations were already severely threatened prior to the arrival of COVID-19, having had to shift the focus of their work away from the original mandates of their organisations towards the provision of humanitarian relief. Moreover, all of the CSOs noted that they expected or have already experienced cuts in donor funding and the cessation of at least some of their activities. There was grave concern about the challenges the pandemic raised for their ability to reach their beneficiaries.

CSOs are most worried about the pressure COVID-19 has placed on health services (71%), social care services (50%), and the economy (50%). Many respondents attributed their anxieties regarding these sectors to the cessation of ongoing programming and activities funded by donors and the need for businesses and individuals to save up in uncertain times. Comparatively, the respondents felt least worried about COVID-19’s impact on the disabled. While the CSOs’ primary focus on immediate, general relief efforts is perhaps unavoidable, this is a worrying finding given Yemen’s notoriously poor track record of providing adequate support for disabled people. Yemen’s war has proved devastating, provoking a steep rise in the number of disabled people and those who face serious mental health problems. 

With regards to the impact of COVID-19 on women, CSOs are mostly worried about the consequences on both women’s physical health and income. However, CSOs are not worried or feel only a moderate degree of concern about the impact of COVID-19 on women’s family and social relationships and women’s mental health. In a country where the majority of the population depends on daily income, it was not surprising to see all respondents note that economic hardship as a result of the lockdowns was crippling the ability of many to earn a living.

Finally, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on CSOs’ levels of confidence in the local authorities was diverse: 35% of the respondents believed their confidence in local authorities had increased; 36% believe their confidence had remained unchanged, and 28% believed their confidence had decreased. Two respondents working in territories controlled by Houthi authorities in the north were the only ones who noted that their confidence in local authorities had decreased significantly. This declining confidence may be related to the silence of the Houthi authorities in relation to the real number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the areas under their control, which are thought to be in the thousands for both categories. The IRG remains more transparent than the Houthi authorities in the north but is also ill-equipped to fight the pandemic.