Catalyzing community-led climate resilience in Yemen –Written statement submitted by Building Foundation for Development
Building Foundation for Development, a national non-governmental organization in Yemen, submits this statement to the 2025 Economic and Social Council High-Level Segment to highlight the escalating climate emergency in Yemen and to propose locally led, science- and evidence-based actions that can advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and leave no one behind.
Yemen is experiencing the compound stresses of protracted conflict and rapid environmental change. Since 2010 the mean surface temperature has risen by almost one degree Celsius, rainfall has grown increasingly erratic, and three tropical cyclones have struck the country since 2018, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and damaging already fragile water and health systems. Drought, salt-water intrusion and flash floods are eroding livelihoods, widening gender gaps and jeopardizing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 6, 13 and 14.
Through programmes in fifteen governorates, Building Foundation for Development has shown that community innovation delivers measurable impact. Thirty-one rainwater-harvesting structures now store twenty-five thousand nine hundred and nineteen cubic metres of water; twenty-seven climate-smart agriculture projects have improved productivity across three thousand seven hundred and fifty hectares of farmland; seventy-six kilometres of rehabilitated irrigation canals and fifteen community dams and water barriers strengthen local water security. Rural and urban water schemes provide safe drinking water to thirty-five thousand households, while solar systems installed on water facilities, schools and health centres generate approximately seven hundred and fifty Thousand kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually. Seventy medical-waste incinerators safely eliminate thirty-five tonnes of hazardous waste each year. Afforestation of over eighteen thousand native trees offsets an estimated one hundred and eighty tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, and more than five thousand five hundred community members have been trained in sustainable farming, natural-resource management and safe waste handling. These integrated, gender-responsive initiatives demonstrate how humanitarian, development and peace efforts can converge to build resilience.
On the eve of the United Nations’ eightieth anniversary, and in line with the High-Level Segment’s call to “advance sustainable, inclusive, science- and evidence-based solutions” and to “catalyze change”, we urge Member States and partners to channel predictable, multi-year climate finance directly to local actors in fragile contexts; scale nature-positive technologies—especially off-grid solar solutions for water, health and food systems; and embed gender-responsive, conflict-sensitive climate action across all humanitarian, development and peace programmes. These steps will accelerate SDG implementation in Yemen and in similarly affected regions worldwide.