Guidance Note: Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket and Setting the Transfer Values (October 2020)

1. CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND OF SURVIVAL MINIMUM EXPENDITURE BASKET (SMEB) IN YEMEN

Yemen has been a dynamic context with compounded crisis including war, diseases, fuel price hikes, currency depreciation and now COVID-19 which has aggravated the vulnerabilities of the affected people. The Humanitarian actors have been working with all in an effort to support the vulnerable communities of Yemen through various programmes including cash, vouchers and hybrid programmes which translated in a vital need for development of a Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket (SMEB) and harmonization of Transfer Values (TV) among the humanitarian CVA programmes.

In late 2017, the Cash and Markets Working Group (CMWG) initiated the development of a national SMEB to guide the CVA actors for determining the assistance packages for Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA). The needs analysis for this exercise was carried out from the existing cluster data. Based on the series of discussions held bilaterally with clusters and within the CMWG, the SMEB was developed and approved in January 2018. The recommended transfer value based on the 2018 approved SMEB was YER 52,000 for the MPCA package however the SMEB was subjected to revision in late 2018 based on the additional items suggested by the CVA community, clusters and CMWG members. A new transfer value of YER 73,000 based on the latest price monitoring was approved in November 2018 for the CVA community for MPCA programmes.

SMEB and the respective transfer values were again subjected for revision in May 2019 and the recommended transfer value was finalized as YER 65,000 to reflect the changes in costs of basis food and non-food items. However, some of the organizations ended up using the different transfer values due to ongoing programmes and already approved donor proposals.

The discussions on the revision of SMEB were initiated again in late 2019 which eventually resulted in the establishment of SMEB for the year 2020 and determining of the corresponding Transfer values. The latest SMEB and the corresponding Transfer Values were presented and endorsed by the CMWG on 30th September 2020. A formal memo was shared with the CMWG members and cluster focal points to ensure the new set SMEB and Transfer Values are implemented from 1st October 2020. The guidance is applicable from 1st October 2020 and it is recommended by CMWG Yemen that any new projects and proposals starting from 1st October 2020 use the guidance note for SMEB, Transfer Values and MPCA package design. The summary of recommendations from the CMWG Yemen are given below for reference and record. The process adopted for the development of SMEB 2020 and determining of Transfer Values 2020 is explained in this guidance note.