Data Science Final Project Fall 2018
Yemen is a country on the precipice of disaster, with the U.N. Secretary General calling it the world's worst “man-made” humanitarian disaster (UN News). According to the World Food Programme, over 17 million Yemenis are food-insecure, including 2.2 million acutely malnourished children. It is estimated that 72% of the population (around 20 million people) are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance (WFP). In addition to severe food shortages, Yemen also faced a ravaging cholera epidemic - the largest epidemic in the world - in 2017 with over 1.2 million suspected cases (MSF, BBC).
How did this happen? The conflict began in 2015 when Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, took control of northwest Yemen and the capital city of Sanaa. Saudi Arabia was alarmed by the rebels take-over of Yemen and, with substantial support from the U.S., U.K. and France, subsequently launched an air campaign and a naval blockade of Yemen (BBC).
The conflict severely intensified when the naval blockade was strengthened in December 2017. This blockade has effectively cut-off the country and people of Yemen from the outside world. Most humanitarian aid, food, and other imports are unable to pass through the blockade (MSF). The airstrikes have also proved devastating for the civilians. Of the over 17,000 deaths and casualties caused by the war, it is estimated that over half of them have been caused by the Saudi-led airstrikes (BBC).
In our project, we wanted to understand what effect, if any, the airstrikes had on food insecurity. We hypothesized that regions which experienced prolonged or numerous airstrikes, especially ones that targeted economic infrastructure, subsequently faced increasingly severe food shortages.
For this project, we sought answers to three primary questions: What is the status of food insecurity by district in Yemen? What areas are being targeted by airstrikes in Yemen? How do airstrikes affect food insecurity in Yemen?
The data was from the Food Security Indicators and Demographic, Health, Education, and Transport Indicators in Yemen from the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) dataset. The Food Security data, collected by World Food Programme, captures information on the level of consumption and dietary diversity at the district level, which is our outcome of interest. The airstrike data was collected from the Yemen Data Project, an independent data collection project formed in 2016.