Market brief
Yemen
The authorities that procure water infrastructure in Yemen, how the deals are put together, and what is in the pipeline.
Reference profile for YemenOverview
Yemen’s donor-funded water works are procured mainly by United Nations agencies rather than Yemeni bodies. UNOPS procures urban water and sanitation works under World Bank projects, and UNICEF and the World Health Organization implement the US$94 million Health, Nutrition and WASH grant approved in June 2026.1 2 3 Contracts are supply, supply-and-install and works lots, such as meters, pipe, solar pumps and network rehabilitation, tendered on the United Nations Global Marketplace; with UNOPS as payer, sovereign payment risk falls away.1 The planned Aden desalination plant is financed by the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen. The register holds one scheme with a disclosed value, the Sanaa wastewater treatment plant, completed in 2000.4 Water institutions have had separate northern and southern leadership since the conflict,5 and tariffs are highly subsidised.6
Market snapshot
The commercial picture in Yemen: the scale of the economy and the water sector, the investment climate, and where the near-term activity is concentrated.
Political stability
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators score, 0–100 (absolute scale), 2025. Political stability; higher is more stable.7
Investment climate
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators score, 0–100 (absolute scale), 2025. Regulatory quality for private investment; higher is better.7
Key institutions
- Ministry of Water & EnvironmentMinistry
- National Water Resources AuthorityResources authority
- Local water & sanitation corporationsUtility
Financing & PPP
- PPP frameworkLimited
- Tracked projectsUS$ 45 m disclosed value in our projects register, none of it in projects not yet operating
- Active fundersWorld Bank (through UN agencies), Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen, Yemen Humanitarian Fund
- Climate adaptation planIn preparation (GCF support approved 2025)
Opportunities
- 01Solar-powered village water supply
- 02Rainwater harvesting & spate irrigation
- 03Aquifer management
- 04Decentralised treatment
Key challenges
- 01Sanaa basin water table falling by up to 5 m a year
- 02Conflict-damaged services
- 03Qat irrigation demand
- 04Extreme humanitarian stress
Sources and notes
Sources: Water use by sector and total water withdrawal: FAO AQUASTAT, estimate for 2023, FAO AQUASTAT Dissemination System, retrieved 20 October 2026. No supply mix is charted: AQUASTAT’s withdrawal-by-source figures date from different years, with groundwater and surface water from 2015 and desalination from 2006, and no desalination or reuse share from 2015 or later exists. Population and GDP: World Bank WDI, latest year (shown on each tile). Other figures: FAO AQUASTAT / national reports, latest available, approximate. Governance indicators: World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (2025).
Contracting authorities
The bodies that commission, regulate and operate water infrastructure in Yemen. In Yemen the Ministry of Water and Environment sets policy and approves the tariffs of the local water and sanitation corporations;6 the National Water and Sanitation Authority plans urban supply and tracks the corporations’ performance, and the corporations build and run the networks;5 World Bank-funded works are contracted by UN agencies.3 2 Water institutions have had separate northern and southern leadership since the conflict.5
- Ministry of Water & EnvironmentMinistry
- Local Water & Sanitation Corporations (LWSCs)Utility
- National Water Resources Authority (NWRA)Basin & resources authority
- General Authority for Rural Water Supply Projects (GARWSP)Rural planning authority
- National Water & Sanitation Authority (NWSA)Urban planning and oversight authority
How deals are structured
The framework in Yemen is Limited, the one tracked scheme with a disclosed value is the Sanaa wastewater treatment plant, completed in 2000 at a total project cost of US$ 45 m, and the funders active in the sector include World Bank (through UN agencies), Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen, Yemen Humanitarian Fund.
In Yemen, World Bank-funded water works are procured by UN agencies, UNOPS for the urban water programmes, as supply, supply-and-install and works contracts;1 the planned Aden desalination plant is financed by the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen, with Saudi Emar named as implementer; no build-operate-transfer concession is on record. The Finance & Economics hub sets out each model and where it has been used.
How to bid
Most donor-funded water works in Yemen are not procured by Yemeni bodies. In the World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and WASH Project, approved on 4 June 2026, Yemen is the beneficiary and UNICEF and the World Health Organization are the grant recipients and implementing agencies;3 UNOPS procures water and sanitation works under the Emergency Human Capital Project and the Second Integrated Urban Services Emergency Project.1 2 For World Bank-funded work a contractor bids on the United Nations Global Marketplace, under United Nations conditions, and is paid by a United Nations agency.
| Who contracts | UNOPS for urban water and sanitation, under the World Bank’s Emergency Human Capital Project and Second Integrated Urban Services Emergency Project,1 2 and UNICEF and the World Health Organization, which are the grant recipients and implementing agencies of the Health, Nutrition and WASH Project, a US$94 million IDA grant approved on 4 June 2026.3 |
|---|---|
| Route and registration | Tenders publish on the United Nations Global Marketplace and run through UNOPS eSourcing. Registration is free at the basic level: a vendor must be registered and logged in to bid.1 |
| Contract form | Supply or supply-and-install against a UNOPS purchase order. The counterparty and payer is UNOPS, not a Yemeni government body, which removes sovereign payment risk.1 |
| What can be bid | Meters, pipe, solar pumps and inverters, heavy equipment, network construction and rehabilitation lots, solar installations at well fields. A worked example is the July 2025 request for quotation for domestic water meters, delivered to the local corporations’ warehouses in two lots for the Sanaa and Aden programme units.1 |
| Scale | By mid-2026 the programme had delivered more than 405,000 metres of pipe, metered over 33,500 households, rehabilitated more than 134,000 metres of network and installed 49 solar units powering 96 facilities.8 |
| Beneficiaries, not buyers | The local water and sanitation corporations receive the assets; the urban water and sanitation programme management units in Sanaa and Aden are named in the tenders. Neither contracts.1 |
The 2026 Health, Nutrition and WASH Project will strengthen water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure at primary health care facilities, with upgrades expected to reduce reliance on emergency water trucking and lower operating costs; it will also pay for emergency water trucking for supported facilities and for areas with an active outbreak.9 UNOPS reports that the water programme it runs has installed 49 solar units powering 96 facilities.8
Regulatory intelligence
| Regulation | Status | Year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water Law (No. 33) | Weakly enforced | 2002 | Executive by-law 2009; NWRA counts about 278 licensed drilling rigs against some 700 unlicensed. |
| Sanaa Basin plans | Stalled | — | Successive rescue plans outpaced by drawdown. |
| Donor WASH frameworks | Active | — | Humanitarian delivery as de facto water policy. |
Projects
Tracked schemes in Yemen, largest first. Each has its own page with the parties, the finance and a dated history.
Sources and notes
Interactive map: switch views, hover or focus a marker, and use the +/− controls (or double-click, then drag) to zoom and pan. Geometry and data from the MENA Water Review library.
Track record
Contracts on record in Yemen, from the awards log and the major projects register, dated by commissioning where known.
| Year | Project | Winning firms | US$ m |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 on line | Sanaa Wastewater Treatment Plant | VINCI Construction Grands Projets contractor | n/a |
Sources and notes
Years without a label are award years from the curated log; rows marked on line are dated by commissioning, from the projects register. Register rows without a commissioning date show their stage instead: awarded, with the year recorded, or under construction or operating, with no year. 1 row in total for Yemen.
Pipeline & tenders
Structured procurements and live tenders in Yemen, drawn from the same review that maintains the pipeline tracker.
Pipeline & awards
Tenders
Prices
What households pay
| Household tariff (US$/m³) | Cost of supply (US$/m³) | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| not published | not published | 2017 (policy note); 2009 (study) | World Bank, Yemen water policy note (2017)6 |
The local water and sanitation corporations charge tariffs approved by the Ministry of Water and Environment, and those tariffs are highly subsidised, but no current schedule was found published. A 2009 study found that network water in Sanaa cost a tenth as much as tanker water.
Residential tariffs, and the cost of supply where a utility publishes it, are kept in one place for the whole region so the comparison holds: a tariff means little without the cost it is measured against.
Watch list
No dated items have been carried forward for Yemen yet. This section fills from the monthly briefings as they are published.
Sources
9 references
Project, pipeline and tender records are compiled from procurer announcements, lender disclosures and trade reporting; each project page carries its own source and the date it was last checked. Institutions are from the decision-maker directory. Economic and water indicators are cited on the reference profile.
- UNOPS via the United Nations Global Marketplace, request for quotation 2025/58447 for domestic water meters, 8 July 2025.
- World Bank (2026), project information document, Second Integrated Urban Services Emergency Project (P175791), 6 April 2026.
- World Bank, board approval notice, Yemen Health Nutrition and WASH Project (P514502), 4 June 2026.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
- UNDP (2022), Water Resources Challenges in Yemen.
- World Bank (2017), Yemen water policy note.
- Kaufmann & Kraay, Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank), 2025 update: political-stability and regulatory-quality scores, 0–100, shown in the market snapshot. worldbank.org/wgi.
- UNOPS, on water and sanitation delivery in Yemen, 10 September 2026.
- World Bank, project information document, Yemen Health, Nutrition and WASH Project (P514502), May 2026.
Numbered references are linked from the superscript markers in the text. Figures without a marker come from the sources above as compiled in the site methodology.
Sources and notes
Conditions vary by governorate and by which authority controls it: water institutions have had separate northern and southern leadership since the conflict.