Measuring hunger and food insecurity in Yemen

Abstract EN

Yemen has become the first country in the MENA region to develop and field a direct survey-based food security survey at the national level.

The survey was administered to a nationally-representative sample of over 112,000 households.

This paper describes the methods used to construct the indicators of food insecurity and analyzes the correlates of food insecurity and hunger among Yemeni households.

The results indicate that food insecurity and hunger are widespread in Yemen.

Food insecure households tended to have more children and fewer household members, were likely to rely on temporary employment, and were more likely to be classified as non-agricultural.

Among agricultural households, households headed by a female or young adult were more likely to be food insecure, while those headed by persons with higher levels of educational attainment were less likely to be food insecurity.

We compare our results to previously-published prevalence estimates and determinants of poverty in Yemen and find some major differences, suggesting that poverty and food insecurity may be identifying different aspects of household need and deprivation.