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Good practice Imported

Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project: Women in Crisis Cash-for-Work

Yemen · Sana'a · See the Yemen profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 80% 37/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since 2016 the World Bank-financed Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project has paid roughly 423,000 conflict-affected Yemenis for short-term work, of whom 22.8% (about 96,000) were women, alongside women recruited as community health and nutrition educators.

423000 people
Total participants engaged in short-term work (2016–2022)
22.8 %
Share of participants who were women (2016–2022)
96000 women
Female participants (approx.) (2016–2022)
50 million USD (IDA grant)
Initial project financing (2016)
871.72 million USD
Expanded financing by 2020 (2020)
8 million people
People affected by livelihood losses (estimate) (conflict period)
6 USD/week
Weekly earnings example (case study)
Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project: Women in Crisis Cash-for-Work

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
World Bank (IDA), Yemen Social Fund for Development & Public Works Project, UNDP
Period
2016–2022
Keywords
economic empowerment, crisis response, cash-for-work, conflict-affected settings

Context

Since 2016, the World Bank-financed Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project (YECRP) has provided short-term cash-for-work employment to conflict-affected Yemenis, addressing livelihood losses linked to the country's civil conflict.

Objectives

The project's primary aim is emergency livelihood and infrastructure support; women's economic participation is described as a secondary, partial outcome rather than a dedicated gender objective, alongside a specific role for women as community health and nutrition educators.

Activities

Participants undertook short-term work such as stone-paving, school-painting and craft production. The project began with an initial US$50 million IDA grant in 2016 and expanded to US$871.72 million in financing by 2020.

Results

Around 423,000 conflict-affected Yemenis took part in the project, with women comprising about 22.8% (roughly 96,000 participants). One documented case describes a 27-year-old woman earning about US$6 per week through project activities.

Conclusions

Reporting on the project is inconsistent across sources, with financing figures ranging from US$50 million to US$871.72 million and at least one UNDP fact sheet containing no gender-disaggregated data. It remains unclear whether the short-term, low-wage work produces durable economic empowerment or only temporary emergency relief, and ongoing conflict limits independent verification of results.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
World Bank (IDA financing), Yemen Social Fund for Development & Public Works Project (implementing agency), UNDP

Conditions for success

  • Consistent gender-disaggregated monitoring and reporting across all partner fact sheets and financing documents
  • Independent verification mechanisms given access constraints from ongoing conflict

Common failure modes

  • Inconsistent reporting across sources (financing figures ranged from US$50 million to US$871.72 million; one UNDP fact sheet contained no gender-disaggregated data)
  • Short-term, low-wage nature of the work raises doubts about durable economic empowerment versus temporary emergency relief
  • Ongoing conflict complicates independent verification of ground-level results

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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