Real Time Monitoring for the Most Vulnerable: Yemen Social Protection Monitoring Survey 2011–2012

Yemen has confronted multiple emergencies prompted, in part, by a protracted political crisis but the impacts of these emergencies on household wellbeing were not well understood. This UNICEF monitoring project sought to fill the information gap by providing panel data, taken at biweekly intervals, from beneficiaries of the government of Yemen's Social Welfare Fund (SWF). With the use of iPads from the second phase of the pilot, data collectors entered household responses directly into data files, which were then uploaded into a common dataset. The analytic report, along with several tables of key indicators was distributed to a list of approximately 100 recipients via email. Despite interesting results with important humanitarian implications, use of the monitoring results has been inconsistent. Opportunities to respond pre?emptively to emerging problems have been missed. As the project scales up, an important revision will be to better integrate and strengthen data analysis and programmatic response.