A young displaced girl in Yemen This report contains the main findings and recommendations of an evaluation of UNICEF’s response to the emergency in Northern Yemen following the outbreak of the sixth round of fighting in the Sa’ada conflict in August 2009. The evaluation was conducted between July and August 2010 and was designed as a Real-Time Evaluation. As such, the main purpose of this evaluation was to support a process of organisational learning of UNICEF’s country office in Yemen.

To reach this goal, the evaluation team included a strong participatory component in the evaluation exercise and implemented several learning workshops. The focus, composition and design of these workshops were defined in response to the demand of different stakeholders. They included learning exercises for two cluster groups and a workshop for members of UNICEF’s emergency team in Yemen that refined, supplemented, and prioritised suggested recommendations. In addition, this exercise clarified who would be responsible for implementation, what successful implementation would mean and by when actions should be taken.

The evaluation found that key stakeholders in Yemen, including the population affected by the conflict in Sa’ada, the government and local authorities as well as humanitarian partner organisations, highly appreciate UNICEF’s presence and its commitment to addressing emergency needs in Northern Yemen. UNICEF’s most important achievements relating to the emergency response include:

UNICEF was one of the first organisations active in implementing relief activities on the ground and several of its staff members demonstrated an impressive level of commitment, initially including the direct implementation of relief activities in the absence of experienced implementing partners.
The country team showed a good capacity to identify problems and address them in the two main IDP camps in Haradh. This capacity to learn was supported by the existence of several effective institutional processes for identifying lessons.
UNICEF and its implementing partners achieved good coverage of services in most of its areas of responsibility in Al-Mazrak camps 1 and 3 in Haradh and beneficiaries in these camps described interventions as largely appropriate (if not always sufficient) to their needs.
Several of UNICEF’s interventions had a good link to recovery and development, including for example the piped water system serving IDPs as well as host communities, the newly introduced system of water quality control and interventions educating and building the capacity of IDPs and local partner organisations.

The most important challenges currently confronting UNICEF in Yemen include:

UNICEF was ill-prepared for the emergency in Northern Yemen, currently has no active contingency plans and, like other organisations in Yemen, lacks the necessary data and analysis for improving preparedness and longer-term planning.
The current response focuses mainly on two camps in Haradh, while services for IDPs outside those camps, for host communities and in other governorates remain sketchy. According to UNHCR estimates, however, less than 17% of IDPs currently live in camps. Moreover, there are gaps in humanitarian response relating to landmines, child soldiers, education (above grade six) and the special needs of some groups.
Despite an initially timely response, UNICEF’s later activities were often delayed and some of the materials used, especially large tents used for educational activities, are not appropriate for the climatic conditions in Northern Yemen.
UNICEF’s country office largely operates in “development mode”, leading to the overburdening of regular staff as well as processes, structures and competencies that are not adapted to the needs of an emergency situation.
Coordination gaps persist despite progress in this area and UNICEF’s work through local implementing partners faces quality problems.

With Yemen facing a very dynamic situation in the short-term and a very high risk of new emergencies in the medium-term, it is important for UNICEF to increase its capacity to respond to disasters. To do so, the organisation needs to take strategic decisions on how to balance its engagement in emergency relief with its development-oriented activities. To do so, UNICEF needs to conduct a thorough situation analysis and develop contingency plans with its partners as well as adapt its organisational structures, processes and capacities accordingly. The following table contains detailed recommendations prioritised by UNICEF’s emergency team in Yemen as well as a summary of the main findings of the evaluation. To ensure follow-up to these recommendations, the country team assigned the overall responsibility for developing a follow-up process to its incoming emergency officer and it is planning an additional workshop with the evaluation team to track progress in implementation and update recommendations for October 2010.

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