Yemen Joint Market Monitoring Initiative: July 2022 Situation Overview

Introduction

The Yemen Joint Market Monitoring Initiative (JMMI) was launched by REACH in collaboration with the Water,
Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster and the Cash and Market Working Group (CMWG) to support humanitarian actors with the harmonization of price monitoring among all cash actors in Yemen.

The JMMI is a monthly survey of market systems. The basket of goods assessed includes 10 non-food items (NFIs), such as fuel, water, and hygiene products, reflecting the programmatic areas of the WASH Cluster. The JMMI tracks all components of the WASH and Food Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket (SMEB) as well as other food and non-food items. In addition to price monitoring, the JMMI includes indicators of market fuctionality, such as questions to infere the supply chain, vendors' constraints and ability to meet demands.

Methodology

Data was collected through interviews with vendor key informants (KIs), selected by partner organisations from markets of various sizes in both urban and rural areas. A minimum of three price quotations, per district, must be obtained. Following data collection, REACH compiles, cleans and analyzes all data, through detailed followups with partners. REACH uses medians to aggregate findings to district, governorate, de-facto authorities (DFA), internationally recognized government (IRG), and national level. It also calculates SMEB prices. Findings are indicative for the assessed locations and time frame in which the data was collected. Districts assessed differ from month to month. Please refer to page 11 for additional methodological details and limitations.

JMMI monthly figures

Data collection 3rd- 7th of July

16 Participating partners

12 Governorates assessed

53 Districts assessed

210 Prices collected per monitored item (average)

Key findings

• The median price of the food SMEB, with canned beans, remained relatively stable in the last 4 months (March - July). In July, the median price was measured at 120,100 YER in IRG areas and 58,238 YER in DFA areas.

• The price of one cubic meter of trucked water reached 8,000 YER in Marib governorate, and 7,000 YER in Hadramaut. In comparison, it was only 2,000 YER in Sana'a City, 2,750 in Amran, and 3,325 YER in Abyan. Partly due to the high water trucking price, the WASH SMEB in Marib was calculated at 40,350 YER median, while it was just 14,814 YER in Sana'a City. The median cost in the WASH SMEB in the IRG was 29,400 YER, and 17,500 YER in DFA areas.

• The price of diesel increased with 17% in the IRG and 19% in DFA areas, standing at 1425 YER and 982 YER per litre respectively. The price of petrol is 1302 YER (+19%) in the IRG and 708 YER (+4%) in the DFA.

• The value of the new Yemen rial banknotes deappreciated with 8% to 1118 YER/USD between June and July, while the value in the DFA areas remained at 557 YER/USD.

• In Ad Dale'e and Al Hudaydah restocking time was longer than 1 week, for fuel, WASH and food items in July.

• Interviewed vendors rarely reported facing problems with the availability of the monitored food and WASH products. Fuel vendors reported that cooking gas is the product they face most shortages of (48/212),