humanitarian organizations using their own internal indicators to decide exactly where to focus assistance within the regions that have the most need in the IPC classification.<sup>35</sup> Importantly, there were substantial changes to the IPC classification in unofficial updates produced by another famine early warning system (FEWS NET 2017). These unofficial updates significantly changed the IPC classification in the country and had downgraded the severity of all IPC 4 regions to IPC 3 by the end of the year.<sup>36</sup> Given this substantial update to the regions that were originally classified as having the most severe food emergency, one might expect the regional emphasis in the share receiving food assistance to change.

However, Figures 3b-3e demonstrate that this did not happen. Rather, food assistance further increased in the regions originally classified as IPC 4 in the official 2017 IPC announcement following the downgrading of the seriousness of the food emergency relative to the rest of the country. Thus, food assistance did not appear to respond to these updates over the time period covered under this analysis.

One potential reason for the lack of a response to the IPC updates is that the majority of food assistance in Yemen is provided by organizations affiliated with the UN (e.g., OCHA 2017), and thus are potentially more responsive to IPC classifications endorsed by the UN. However, the organization that was updating the IPC most often during this time period (FEWS NET) is funded by the United States Agency for International Development, and thus might be more closely used for assistance provided by the US government. However, regardless of the exact reason, food assistance decisions in Yemen appear to be significantly influenced by the official 2017 IPC announcement that was not updated for nearly two years in a situation with constant conflict-related shocks and a rapidly changing food security situation (e.g., OCHA 2019).

# **5c. The Change in Food Access**

We investigate the impact the increase in assistance had on food access in Table 3. The table re-estimates all the specifications from Table 2, but uses the average FCS as the dependent variable.<sup>37</sup> Columns (1) and (2) demonstrate food access did improve on average across the entire country following the 2017 IPC announcement and the subsequent increase in food assistance. In the most complete specification in column (2), FCS increased by 3.5 percent on average.

However, column (3) demonstrates that this improvement in food access was not uniform over the entire post-announcement period. Rather, the estimates demonstrate that food access was trending slightly down prior to the increase in food assistance.<sup>38</sup> In the second quarter of 2017, the average FCS was worse than in the first quarter (coefficient on _Q_ 2 ~~2~~ 017 Indicator). Following the large increase in the share receiving food assistance in the third quarter of 2017,

> 35It is also possible that the distribution of assistance in Lahj and Sa’ada were easier for humanitarian agencies than in other IPC 4 governorates.

> 36In the June 2017 update, only one governorate remained in the classification that was closest to famine (IPC 4), while the rest of the regions that were in that classification were downgraded to IPC 3. Beginning in October 2017, the update further downgraded that one remaining governorate to IPC 3 as well.

> 37Appendix 9 demonstrates qualitatively identical patterns using average rCSI as the dependent variable.

> 38Although food access was trending down, it was trending down similarly in all regions in the country.

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