There are now more hungry and poor people in Yemen as civil conflict spreads to further regions of the country.
According to the most recent update of the FAO Food Security Information System Project (FSIS) and the Food Security Technical Secretariat (FSTS) in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC), nearly 10.6 million people in Yemen were food insecure by the end of 2014. If civil conflict continues to expand, about 16 million Yemenis would urgently need humanitarian assistance. Yemen’s unemployment rate is also very high. The economy is likely to collapse if immediate and coordinated action is not taken by the government and external humanitarian agencies.
Map Showing Acute Food Insecurity Phases of Governorates in Yemen 
Source: Food and Agriculture Organisation (2015). Yemen Food Security Update: March. Yemen Food Security Information System (FSIS) Development Programme. Available at: http://www.fao.org/neareast/perspectives/building-resilience/en/ [Accessed on 6 April 2015]
There are different explanations for growing food insecurity in Yemen.
• Food imports and availability – market infrastructure, food production, and distribution facilities are being damaged by conflict and this is also causing food prices to rise (marginally in Sana’a and more sharply in the southern states of Aden, Lahaj, Abyan, and Shadbwa). Yemen’s import requirements was about 4.1 million tons annually in 2013 and 2014, a large amount considering current capacities for food distribution and infrastructure.
• Agriculture, Local Food Production, and Markets – civil insecurity will bring more risks to market infrastructure, which will disrupt food distribution and supply, and also increase prices. Conflict will also have negative impacts on labor opportunities in agriculture.
• Heavy Reliance on Oil and Gas Revenues – Yemen relies on crude oil and natural gas exports for its foreign exchange. Oil revenues dropped by half (US $ 1.4 billion) from January to October 2014 due to falling international oil prices and armed attacks on Yemen’s production lines.
• Safety Nets, Development, and Humanitarian Support to the Poorest Households is Slowing Down – the World Bank recently suspended its support to a number of programs, including the public works projects which provided temporary employment for about two million people.
• Internally Displaced Populations – Displaced persons reliant on humanitarian assistance will suffer from the disruption of several aid programs of the WFP, UNHCR, and other national and international NGOs.
• Public Investment – The government’s Public Investment Program (PIP) for 2014 (with a total budget of YER. 591,193,384) was also disrupted due to the power vacuum in central government. This resulted in budget allocation being stopped and projects no longer being approved.
• Budgetary Crisis and Unemployment – Due to the reduced production of oil, closure of foreign embassies, suspension of key bilateral funding sources, and the recent evacuation of international staff of UN and NGOs, foreign exchange availability is expected to fall. The combined effect of these events may result in a collapse of the economy, in turn causing serious income loss for millions of people who depend on civil service salaries. This may further fuel civil unrest.
In view of ongoing conflict, several policy solutions can help reduce the expansion of food insecurity to more segments of the population. These include,
• Increase measures to provide humanitarian support to populations likely to be newly displaced and those becoming more food insecure
• More effective measures to ensure markets are functional and also maintaining a regular flow of exports and imports
• Increasing pro-poor investments in social safety net programs, public works, rural infrastructure development, and other employment generating interventions to boost incomes
• Increase budgetary support and financial assistance to critical sectors of the economy
• Increase the coordination of food security and nutrition information management systems to provide evidence-base for humanitarian and early recovery decision-making
Photo Credit: Annasofie Flamand/IRIN
