Imagine waking up every morning and not knowing where your next meal will come from. Your country’s economy has collapsed, inflation is skyrocketing and your husband’s daily wage is so small you’re uncertain if you’ll be able to afford basic items like food, clothes or toiletries.
For a long time, this was a daily reality for 22-year-old Afaf, who lives with her husband and twin daughters in Yemen’s rural Al Dhale’e governorate. Their situation wasn’t unusual: after a decade of conflict and economic collapse, 83% of Yemen’s population lives in multidimensional poverty. 17.6 million Yemenis are likely severely food-insecure in 2024—in other words, they have run out of food and sometimes go a day or more without eating. The situation is so dire that about 5 million children under 5, as well as about 2.7 million pregnant and lactating women, will require treatment for acute malnutrition this year.
Fortunately, everything was about to change for Afaf’s family—and for hundreds of other Yemeni families in the governorate.
International Medical Corps has worked in Yemen since 2012, offering a range of programmes, including healthcare, nutrition and protection services. In 2021, we added an unconditional cash assistance programme to these services, giving small amounts of money that make a big difference to the most vulnerable people in Al Dhale’e and Ibb governorates—in particular, families with young children and pregnant or lactating women. It’s been immensely successful: we provided nearly $500,000 to more than 5,000 people in 2023 alone.
Getting cash to families like Afaf’s brings its own challenges. Because many of the most vulnerable Yemenis live in remote villages and camps for people displaced by the ongoing conflict there, they often struggle to access help, or don’t know about the services available to them. So International Medical Corps trains mobile medical units and community health workers (CHWs) to travel to these remote villages and camps. The teams evaluate children’s nutritional status, provide healthcare services such as vaccinations and spread the word about the help available at health facilities closest to the villagers.
One of our community health workers met Afaf during an outreach visit and realised that she could benefit from our support. She referred Afaf to the closest health unit so she could get advice on meeting the nutritional needs of herself and her daughters. Afaf began to regularly attend the health centre’s free nutritional and infant and young-child feeding advice services, where she learned about our cash assistance programme. She was thrilled to learn that her family was eligible. We gave her six months’ worth of cash assistance, totalling YER140,000 (equivalent to approximately $97 per month).
The cash was a lifeline for Afaf and her family. In addition to funding meals and other essentials for her family, the money helped Afaf achieve a lifelong dream of opening a small store selling food, cosmetics and other supplies to local women. Run out of her own home, this is the only shop of the kind in her village—meaning that local women no longer have to make the hour-long trek to the nearest town to buy basic supplies.
Afaf’s family is finally stable financially. The income from the store means that Afaf can keep feeding her daughters, improve their quality of life and give them better access to educational opportunities as they grow up.
“Opening the store was my dream,” says Afaf. “Now, I can offer women what they need without them having to travel to the city. I feel proud that I can support my family and contribute to the community. Receiving this assistance really changed my life.”
Direct cash assistance is a very effective method of delivering aid to vulnerable communities. Unlike transporting supplies—which is challenging in Yemen due to conflict, blockades and poor infrastructure—money can be transferred easily and cheaply. Plus, cash strengthens local economies, creating a ripple effect of benefits in these villages. But that’s not all.
“In addition to addressing families’ urgent needs, cash assistance promotes economic independence for women,” explains Khalil Mohammed, Senior Food Security and Livelihood Officer at International Medical Corps. “Cash assistance strengthens their family situations, preserves their dignity and fosters their families’ food security in the long term.”
Yemen is one of the world’s lowest-ranking countries for gender equality: women and girls are excluded from education and formal employment, are married before the age of 18 in almost one-third of cases and suffer from high rates of gender-based violence (GBV). But our financial support enables them to be more involved in financial decisionmaking within their families and communities—boosting their confidence and reducing their risks of experiencing abuse.
Cash distributions are also an opportunity to check in with vulnerable groups and provide other kinds of support. The separate distribution points for men and women mean that the staff at these distributions can raise awareness about GBV and child-protection issues. If anyone needs help, our teams are ready to advise them.
Over the past few years, these cash distribution programmes have helped thousands of young children and mothers in Al Dhale’e stay fed and healthy. Our teams even run nutrition workshops for mothers, which help them learn how to effectively feed themselves and their children with the money they receive. It’s a virtuous cycle that improves overall health—for example, families with better nutritional status are more protected from diseases like cholera and measles, which have been devastating communities in Yemen.
“Targeting these most vulnerable groups is an effective way to improve maternal and child health outcomes in this challenging environment,” says Mohammed.
“We see women express so much relief and gratitude when we provide them with money. It helps reduce their stress levels and even enables them to invest in their own small businesses—something that was entirely out of reach before!”
International Medical Corps has responded to the world’s worst disasters and humanitarian crises since 1984. You can support our work across the globe—and bring hope to families like Afaf’s—by donating today.