UNICEF Yemen launched a monitoring system for social protection on June 29th, which aims to establish routine access to disaggregated household (HH) data for monitoring trends over time on how vulnerable populations are coping with the current crisis in Yemen. The data has been collected every two weeks from 120 HHs in Sana’a, Amran, and Hodeida, during the period of June- December 2012. Starting from this round, data is collected on a monthly basis. (Please refer to annex 1 and 2 for details on the methodology; and HH & HH members characteristics).
As in previous rounds, food security and nutrition indicator are alarmingly low. The mean HH consumption of grains, meat, chicken, and eggs has slightly increased compared with the previous round; this should be interpreted with caution since the consumption recall of HHs on monthly basis differs from that of weekly basis. To ensure easy comparison with previous rounds, the amounts presented are the mean consumption per HH, with an average of 9 members, over the period of 2 weeks. For example, the mean HH consumption of meat in this round is 0.8 KG/HH/2wks compared with the previous round (0.7 KG/HH/2wks); and the mean consumption of grains is 39.1 KG/HH/2wks compared with 38.6 KG/HH/2wks in round 12. The percentage of children < 5yrs consuming dairy products decreased to 48.3% compared with 52.5% in the previous round. Similarly, the percentage of children < 5yrs consuming red meat, fish, or chicken decreased to 5.8 % compared to 7.5 % in the previous.
Disaggregated data by governorate and rural/ urban revealed several noteworthy findings. For example, 55% of rural HHs reported at least one member going to bed hungry due to lack of food, compared to 20% of urban HHs. Protein intake (red meat, fish, or chicken) among children < 5yrs is especially low among children in rural HHs (0%) compared with urban HH (8.8%); and more HHs in rural areas (60%) reported decreased meals among children <5yrs compared with those in urban areas (40.8).
Child Protection indicators in this round changed compared with the previous round, due to significant changes in Amran, where there was a huge increase in the percentage of children who are afraid of playing outside the house (57.5%) compared to the previous round (5.4%). This is not related to the political unrest; but mainly due to the murder of a 6 years old girl by a teenager in unclear circumstances, which has created fear among children in Amran and their families.
The estimated water consumption (litre/ person/ day) remains low (25.2) and has decreased compared with the previous round (31.9). The decrease is mainly related to decreased consumption in urban areas (26.9) compared with the previous round (37.4), although consumption did not significantly change in rural areas (21.6) compared with round 12 (20.7). Hygiene and sanitation is still a major issue, especially among rural HHs, where not even a single HH in rural areas had enough water for hand washing (0%), compared to 42.5% in urban HHs, and not even one single HHs (0%) had enough water for house cleaning, compared to 45 % in urban areas.
The prevalence of diarrhea (55.4%) and cough (74.4%) among children <5yrs increased compared with the previous round (40.7 % and 64.4% respectively). Disaggregated data by governorate reveal that the increased cough prevalence is mainly due to the increase in Sana’a and Amran governorates (87.5% and 72.5%) compared with the previous round (69% and 60.7% respectively).
Increased diarrheal prevalence in this round was mainly due to a significant increase among children in Amran governorate (65 %) compared with the previous round (25 %), while Hodeida and Sana’a remain unchanged compared with the previous round. The dry season in Amran and decreased availability of clean water might be one of the reasons for this increase.