Life Saving NFIs and Food Assistance Project In line with the overall priority for 2016 the proposed project will distribute 3480 Food baskets and 924 NFI Kits providing direct life saving non-food and food assistance to the most vulnerable and needy IDPs living with host families and sheltering in collective centers and spontaneous settlements across 4 districts across four governorates in Yemen. A total of  9737 individuals including: 2633 men, 2528 women, 2334 boys and 2242 girls will benefit from the project. The poor host  families will also  benefit  from the distributions. 

The governorates targeted are among the most food insecure and poorest in the country. Taiz is having the highest number of IDPs and access to Taiz had been severely restricted for the past eight months. Ibb, though having a high number of IDPs, mostly from Taiz, has not received sufficient assistance. Al-Jawf, being one of the ‘hard to reach governorates’ has suffered as well and so has Al-Bayda which has been ignored despite being one of the poorest governorates. The IDPs in all the four governorates are living under very difficult conditions which have exacerbated due to the recent floods, in addition to the price hikes. The governorates also face harsh winters and the situation of the IDPs is expected to deteriorate further, especially since they do not have access to mattresses and blankets to keep themselves warm or food, utensils  and stoves.

The project will distribute NFIs and food baskets in Ibb, Al-Bayda and Al-Jawf. Taiz will be targeted only for distribution of NFIs.

In addition to the standard food and non-food items, the project will also distribute kerosene stoves and kerosene. It is visualised that the items distributed by the project will assist households in cooking and meeting their basic food requirements, help them in protecting themselves from the harsh winter and hence save lives. 

Vulnerable groups including women, children, elderly, persons with disabilities, sick persons, etc. need special attention. The project is designed to reach out to the most vulnerable and needy IDP families living with poor host families and in spontaneous settlements and collective centers. For example, it is seen that women are affected the most during emergencies and they are the ones who often resort to reduced meals or skip meals for the good of their families. This project will particularly target women headed households, households with pregnant/lactating women as well as ensure access of women to the items distributed. It will thus contribute to improving the  food consumption of women in the target families. Also, it is seen that children, elderly persons and persons with disabilities, sick persons often do not have access. The project will take special care to target households headed by these groups as well as households having members falling in this category.

In  addition the project’s approach of working with sub-implementing partners (national NGOs), hiring field staff locally, engaging local communities / local authorities will contribute to building local capacity in humanitarian response.
The food and non-food items distributed by the project will prove to be life saving for the target households.   As the project will distribute food 3 times, it will improve the access of these individuals to the common Yemeni food staples for a period, helping them to regain their physical strength and contribute to their mental peace. The non-food items distributed by the project will stay with the  beneficiary families for long and lessen their suffering during their period of displacement. As many of the IDPs were poor to start with and have now lost whatever little they had, the NFIs will also help them during the period of recovery and re-building their lives.