# **Introduction**

The conflict in the Republic of Yemen escalated in March of 2015 and has been continuing unabated for over three years. Although the actual implications of conflict significantly vary from context to context, the conflict in Yemen is composed of a number of different conflict‐related shocks. Specifically, there has been an escalation in violence (e.g., Sundberg and Melander 2013), a tightening of the ports and a disruption of vital supply chains,<sup>4</sup> and a general worsening of the economic climate.<sup>5</sup> These major shocks have all contributed to a humanitarian catastrophe. Estimates suggest that approximately 22 million Yemenis (over three‐quarters of the total population) are in need of humanitarian assistance, of which over 11 million are in acute need of assistance to sustain their lives (OCHA 2018). One of the most pressing concerns is food security, which was an important issue even prior to the conflict due to the spike in international food prices in 2011 and the uncertainty in the country following the political transition in 2012 (e.g., WFP 2012; World Bank 2017). However, the addition of the conflict‐related shocks has substantially caused income to decline and worsened food security, where nearly the entire population is under the threat of famine or would be threatened by famine in the absence of humanitarian aid (e.g., FEWS NET 2018).

Despite the identification of all three types of shocks‐ violence, disrupted supply chains, and a poor economic climate‐ as being important determinants of income declines and food insecurity, there is little concrete understanding of how each of these factors individually is contributing to the evolution of food security over time. This paper assesses the degree to which the worsening food security situation is related to the localized effects of violence, as opposed to other factors. Better understanding these correlations can help to better identify populations that could most be helped by food assistance and can better identify policies that have the potential to most improve food security.

Using a monthly mobile phone survey conducted by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Yemen since September of 2015, this paper demonstrates that the evolution of poor food access‐ as measured through standard food coping strategies‐ does not match the evolution of violence after the conflict began.<sup>6</sup> In the most complete empirical specification, one can reject the hypothesis that the effect of doubling the monthly fatalities in a governorate on average having a larger than 0.008 increase in the share of people reporting to have poor food access in the following month at standard significance levels.<sup>7</sup> This lack of a statistically significant or meaningful relationship survives numerous robustness checks, including incorporating the effects of lagged violence, separating the violence by either type of violence or by actors involved, separating the effect of violence separately for different years or for different locations in the country, accounting for food assistance being distributed in the country, and accounting for the possibility of internal displacement obscuring the true relationship.

> 4 For example, see (accessed September 2018): <u>https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/escalating‐humanitarian‐ crisis.</u>

> 5 For example, see (accessed September 2018): <u>https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen‐rapid‐assessment‐ report‐december‐2016‐measuring‐impact‐public‐sector‐wage.</u>

> 6 Prior to the conflict, 85 percent of the population resided in a household that owned a mobile phone and would be able to be reached by the household‐level survey conducted by the WFP.  Furthermore, the Data section will discuss a wide range of evidence that suggests mobile phone access of households has remained high even among the population most affected by violence.

> 7 The average number of monthly fatalities in a governorate over the time period under analysis is approximately 70.

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