Abyan Assessment Report 8-9 July 2012

1.0 Introduction

As a direct impact of finalizing the military operation in Abyan, located to the South of Yemen, the humanitarian space became available more than during the Ansar al-Shari'a era. Yemen HCT decided to conduct a Multi-cluster Initial Rapid Assessment (MIRA), the results of which would aid an effective design of humanitarian program and prioritizing allocation of resources.

The MIRA assessment methodology was chosen as an overall joint assessment tool covering all clusters, identifying needs in sufficient details based on core indicators and will not replace any specific cluster assessment. It was chosen to provide decision makers with the needed information for prioritizing the needs and as a result strategically allocate the limited resources. In addition, MIRA Assessment in Abyan was carried out to provide evidence based analysis vis-à-vis the humanitarian context of the Abyan; which will pave the road to design Abyan and South Humanitarian Emergency Response Plan.

1.1 Objectives

OCHA prepared ToR for the assessment and agreed with clusters on the following objectives:

1. 
   To update the existing Security Risk Assessment (SRA) and increase security collaboration between UN agencies and local authorities,
   
2. 
   To identify and assess needs and gaps that have emerged since the eruption and ending of the military operations in Abyan,
   
3. 
   To validate the on-going programmes that implemented by partners based on the findings of the MIRA,
   
4. 
   To capture lessons learn from the exercise in Abyan and improve the process for future use in Yemen.
   

The Assessment focused on the following cluster specific objectives:

1: Food Security and Livelihoods: focus on the needs of the population disaggregated as war affected population and returnees and verify the needs are driven by lack of availability or due to security situation. The impact of livelihood on food availability and food security situation and general humanitarian situation in Abyan.

2: Health: Evaluate health situation in Abyan, and concentrating on the availability of health services in Abyan. Also focusing on what are the priority issues according to the technical evaluation and beneficiaries perspectives.

3: WASH: Identify the outstanding WASH needs and verify the reasons for such merging needs,

4: Protection: evaluate the impact of conflict on population movements and identify persons concerns. Assess protection issues faced by the population including GBV, child protection related issues, non-discriminatory access to assistance and services, respect of human rights and neutrality of provision of assistance. Assess the situation concerning explosive remnants of war.

5: Logistic: Evaluate the impact of current war and previous clashes on roads capacity and how it affect access related issues.

6: Shelter & Non-food Items: Assess the population and technical perspectives on how shelter related issues are prioritized in any future intervention. Verify NFI needs for population and the gaps.

7: Coordination and Common Services: Liaise with authorities as well as international and national humanitarian communities to gain an overview on the ground and who is doing what where and to identify gaps and needs. Raise the vital concerns for the safety and well being issues that affect safety and security of both affected population and relief aid workers. Ensure international humanitarian principles are respected in all humanitarian actions and no forcibly return is or will take place.