The food security situation in Yemen is unstable. The 2nd IPC analysis of current acute food insecurity situation for April 2013 covered 13 Governorates, of which 7 have been classified in IPC Phase 3 Crisis and 6 have been classified in IPC Phase 4 Emergency. According to the Food consumption score equivalence with IPC phases, around 8 million people are classifying in IPC phases 3 and 4.

Compared to the previous analysis of August 2012, there has been a slight improvement in civil security in the western Governorates, although the situation remains unstable. In these Governorates, households have been able to access credit for food purchase, which resulted in a slight improvement in food consumption. Overall, 21% of the population have a poor food consumption score and 28% have a borderline FCS according to the WFP FSMS of March 2013 (data collected in Dec. 2012), compared with 31% poor and 23% borderline FCS in December 2012. Nonetheless, this also results in a level of indebtedness which in a context of low income, little income opportunities and high vulnerability of households could lead to an aggravation of food insecurity in the coming months.

In the Southern and Northern parts of Yemen, conflicts are ongoing. According to OCHA, about 349,000 IDPs remain in Yemen and are primarily in the northern parts of the country. These people were displaced due to the ongoing conflict and cannot return home due to the threat of landmines, massive destruction to infrastructure and lack of access to basic services. About 180,000 returnees are registered, mostly in the southern parts of the country, having returned home after the 2012 conflict. In addition, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants arrivals in Yemen have doubled from 53,000 in 2010 to 107,000 in 2012. The number of new arrivals in 2013 has started to decline for the first time since the 2011 famine, but was still of over 30,000 between January and April 2013, mainly from Ethiopia and Somalia. 25,000 migrants or asylum seekers from Ethiopia and Somalia are in Hajjah Governorate without assistance.

The food security outlook for the first half of 2013 is anticipated to be slightly worse than for 2012. Further increases in staple prices are anticipated as the lean season advances (March to June) particularly in May and July before the first season harvest which begins in July, but this should be compensated by improved terms of trade with increased labor opportunities beginning in June/July as the harvest approaches. Although difficult to ascertain, due to absence of climatic information, the FEWS Net remote sensing information shows that the season rainfall situation was below average in western cropping areas and above average in wadi cultivation and pastoral areas of the center and East, but is forecasted to be near average through the end of the rainy season in June.

The IPC Technical Working Group issued the folling recommendations:

• Strengthen capacity of national analysts and raise awareness among decision-makers.
• Decentralize the IPC analysis process at governorate level – to capture local knowledge on dynamics of acute food insecurity and if data allows, use the district as unit of analysis for a more detailed analysis.
• Lead the analysis of chronic food insecurity using the specific IPC tools to be released early 2014.
• Identify a clear mechanism for calculating food insecure population using consistent and comparable data in Yemen.
• Standardize and harmonize the data collected by different partners. The coordination mechanism should clearly identify and set the timing and geographic areas for the data collection.

The next analysis round should take place around October 2013, depending on availability of data and funding