A Literature Review on Social Assistance and Capacity in Yemen

This review summarises the key literature and evidence on the capacities of national and international actors involved in providing social assistance in Yemen. It has been undertaken to inform a Yemen study on social assistance capacities and systems, part of the Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research programme. The primary audience is donors providing social assistance in Yemen, to help their decision-making on how to support local actors’ capacities for social assistance. Social assistance refers to the non-contributory transfers (provided as food, cash or vouchers) to poor and vulnerable households and individuals. Today in Yemen these transfers support millions of people, funded by humanitarian and development aid, and implemented by international aid agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with national quasi-governmental bodies and national and local NGOs. Other local stakeholders (national and local governance authorities in the north and south of the country, and community members and beneficiaries) are also involved. In this report, we summarise the political economy of international support in Yemen (Section 2). We map the social assistance landscape (Section 3), as well as the capacities of key national actors (Section 4) and international actors (Section 5 and Annexe). Section 5 sets out some preliminary conclusions.