Water Minister Tawfiq al-Sharjabi Promotes Anticipatory Action

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ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s water and environment minister called on Wednesday for a shift from disaster response to anticipatory action, opening a two-day workshop in Aden on early warning triggers.

Tawfiq al-Sharjabi spoke at the opening session, the state news agency Saba reported.

He said the approach would reduce losses and damage and strengthen community resilience, according to the agency.

Al-Sharjabi urged a move away from traditional response mechanisms towards early intervention based on forecasting data and early warning systems.

The workshop is on developing what the ministry calls anticipatory action triggers for Yemen.

Anticipatory action frameworks release money and supplies when an agreed forecast threshold is crossed, rather than after a hazard has struck.

The Ministry of Water and Environment organised the event with the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Meteorology, the World Food Programme and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The authority is Yemen’s national meteorological body and sits under the Ministry of Transport.

Government institutions, UN agencies, other organisations and international partners took part, Saba said.

The workshop aims to set practical foundations for anticipatory action and to strengthen national capacity to forecast climate-related risks, according to the agency.

It is also meant to develop mechanisms for preventive measures before disasters occur or worsen, covering droughts, floods, cyclones and severe weather.

Al-Sharjabi said Yemen faces rising climate risks affecting lives, livelihoods, food security, infrastructure and essential services.

He called on government bodies, international and local partners and donors to provide the technical and financial support needed to turn national plans and frameworks into programmes.

Saba did not report which agencies had committed funding, or a timetable for the framework.

Saba is the only source to have reported the workshop. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the proceedings, and no account of the event published by the participating UN agencies.

Flooding has repeatedly overwhelmed response capacity in Yemen this year.

Floods and heavy rain between late March and the end of April affected more than 100,000 people from 14,375 families, killed 28 and injured 84, according to an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies field report and reporting by Yemen Monitor.

Homes, displacement camps, infrastructure and farmland were damaged, those accounts said.

A second period of flooding that began in late June and intensified into early August killed at least 57 people and affected more than 34,000 families, according to a flood flash update issued by the UN humanitarian affairs office.

Hodeidah, Taiz and Marib were among the governorates hit, and 49 displacement sites sustained shelter damage, the update said.

Roads were cut, restricting humanitarian access, and further rain was forecast.

The International Organization for Migration reported damage to crops, roads and water supply systems, and scaled up its response.

More than 22 million people in Yemen require humanitarian assistance and 18.3 million are acutely food insecure, according to the United Nations humanitarian needs and response plan published in March 2026.

The plan counts 5.2 million internally displaced people.

It records more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, of whom 516,157 are severely malnourished.

The plan seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.

The Ministry of Water and Environment has held a run of meetings with donors and agencies in Aden in recent months.

Saba has reported al-Sharjabi discussing water and sanitation priorities with the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNESCO, CARE, the UN Office for Project Services and Solidarités International.

He also met Germany’s ambassador to Yemen, Thomas Schneider, on cooperation in water, environment and climate change adaptation, the agency reported.

One project under discussion concerns climate-resilient urban water supply and sanitation for vulnerable communities in Taiz.

Another set of talks covered water sector planning with local civil society organisations.

Other bodies have run parallel early warning work in Aden this year. The World Health Organization’s eastern Mediterranean office reported a training workshop in the city from 11 to 16 February on electronic event-based disease surveillance and public health emergency management, held with the Ministry of Public Health and Population.

Action Against Hunger, the global and Yemen nutrition clusters and the same ministry ran a separate anticipatory action workshop on nutrition, drawing about 80 participants from government institutions, non-governmental organisations, international partners, UN agencies and cluster teams, according to the Global Nutrition Cluster.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has reported a workshop examining Yemen’s national capacity to manage disaster risk, using Aden as its case study and covering the role of local authorities.

The Ministry of Transport has reported a further workshop for the civil aviation authority on early warning of disaster risks.

Anticipatory action has been taken up elsewhere in the region. The disaster risk office reported that Djibouti held a risk knowledge workshop for early warning and anticipatory action under the Early Warnings for All initiative.

Yemen’s coast has been struck by tropical cyclones in recent years, among them Chapala and Megh in 2015 and Luban in 2018.

Saba did not say whether the Aden workshop would produce a published framework document.

The workshop was due to run for a second day in Aden on Thursday.