Examining the impact of cash transfer programme by Oxfam

Study Objectives

This study aimed to examine the impact of the going Oxfam’s cash transfer programme in Shafer, Abs district, Hajjah Governorate. It examined primary the impact of the programme on its targeted beneficiaries and communities. In addition, it investigated its impact on the local market and economies of targeted areas. This report describes the findings of the current study.

Background

Yemen reached its third year with war and struggling with near-collapsing economy. Even before the current conflict, years of mismanagement, and depletion of natural resources, both oil and water, had led to chronic poverty and underdevelopment. Yemen in its overall areas has minimal access to basic services such as food, livelihood, water, and health care in much of the country. The conflict has only exacerbated those issues. When issues came together, it imposed people with much more severe consequences. The ongoing war has halted Yemen’s exports, pressured the currency’s exchange rate, accelerated inflation, severely limited food supply, and fuel imports. Just briefly in figures, more than 7 million people are at risk of famine and more than 80% of the population in need of humanitarian assistance as per UN reports. Cash transfer programme has been implemented by INGOs such as Oxfam hoping to identify impact.

Methodology

This study used the experimental design methodology and focused only on posttest with treatment and control groups. It is a cross-sectional study where data was collected just once after distributing cash transfers. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed for the purpose of collecting data. Quantitative data was collected from 375 beneficiaries and 375 non-beneficiaries. Beneficiaries, those who received cash assistance from Oxfam based on an average of 7 rounds a year (July 2017 to March 2018), were selected randomly and they were considered as the treatment group. While non-beneficiaries, those who have not received any previous cash assistance from Oxfam, were selected randomly and they were considered as the control group.

In addition, qualitative data were collected by interviewing twenty community leaders and twenty traders who were selected randomly. Furthermore, this study collected quantitative data from five different local markets by monitoring the goods‟ availability and prices for 6 days. Questionnaires were used for the purpose of collecting quantitative and qualitative data. This study used different statistical methods provided by SPSS in order to do the data analysis; such as; frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, t-test, and regression analysis. In addition, the tools provided by Microsoft Excel were employed for the purpose of generating different figures.