The World Bank announced a new US$140 million grant to maintain the delivery of emergency cash transfers to 1.5 million poor and most vulnerable Yemeni households, covering a total of 9 million individuals. The new grant is from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank fund for the world’s poorest countries.

The new grant is the third additional financing for the ongoing Emergency Crisis Response Project. The original project was launched in 2016; Along with its subsequent additional financing, it aims to address the immediate impact of the crisis on Yemen’s poor and most vulnerable, including women and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Almost half of the recipients of the cash transfers are women. The new grant will finance two additional quarters of cash payments.

“A regular source of income is crucial for vulnerable families so that they can keep children in school and purchase food and medicine,” said Dr. Raja Bentaouet Kattan, World Bank Country Manager for Yemen. “Protecting human capital through this program is vital for Yemen’s future; malnutrition can cause long-term cognitive damage, and a generation that misses out on school will be ill equipped to rebuild once peace is restored”.

The ongoing project covers all of Yemen 333 districts. According to the latest monitoring report, 9 out of 10 recipients use most of the transfers to purchase food and to a lesser extent for medicine and debt repayment. In addition to delivering cash benefits, the project contributes to developing the delivery systems for Yemen cash transfer program to preserving local institutional capacity.

“The additional funding from the World Bank to the Emergency Cash Transfer Project will help the ongoing efforts to respond to the catastrophic economic situation that millions of Yemenis are facing,” said Meritxell Relano, UNICEF Representative in Yemen. “Families will be able to buy essential goods and therefore, prevent many children and mothers from falling victims to malnutrition”.

With this new financing, IDA emergency grants to Yemen issued since July 2016 have totaled US$1.162 billion.
AFP.