Understanding How UNHCR Engages with Communities in Yemen: Community Engagement Survey Report

"Listening and talking to the communities it serves is inherent in UNHCR humanitarian response and an integral to UNHCR community-based protection approach."

In Yemen, community engagement has been an essential part of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)'s response to the COVID-19 crisis. In June 2020, UNHCR conducted a survey to assess the quality and impact of this engagement and to identify areas for improvement. This document presents the key findings of the study and offers recommendations to better support two-way communication as part of UNHCR's humanitarian response to COVID-19 in Yemen.

For UNHCR, community engagement and two-way communication with affected populations is critical to understanding refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs)' needs and how they want UNHCR and its partners to address them. It also allows UNHCR to inform displaced communities and individuals about how to access services. To that end, UNHCR partners lead activities at the community level, such as awareness-raising sessions, mass information campaigns, door-to-door visits, and monitoring in sites and at service points, such as community centres. They use both physical and virtual modalities, including posters, leaflets, hotlines, text messages, and social media.

For the assessment of this work, UNHCR interviewed over 3,000 displaced Yemenis, refugees, asylum seekers, and host community members across the country. Key findings:

• Displaced Yemenis, refugees, asylum seekers, and host communities' families do not always know the full range of services offered by UNHCR and partners. For example, they may not be aware of available protection services, such as psychosocial support, which may have been limited even before displacement due to socio-cultural norms and other reasons.
• Refugees, asylum seekers, displaced Yemenis, and members of their host communities play a crucial role in supporting the information flow on UNHCR's assistance and services. Displaced persons trust people they know, and informal communication (word of mouth) remains the preferred way to receive information. UNHCR primarily relies on local and community-based organisations that are often well-rooted and respected in the communities they serve.
• Strong communication initiatives to raise awareness about COVID-19, including by UNHCR, have helped increase awareness and adoption of preventive measures. For instance, 85% of displaced Yemeni and host communities and the majority of refugees and asylum seekers in the north of Yemen interviewed say they apply COVID-19-preventive measures; barriers such as lack of access to clean water and hygiene are prohibitive for some.
• Respondents said people with specific needs, including older people without family support, people with disabilities, children, and single women, face the most significant challenges in accessing information - possibly due to mobility issues, limited access to service points, and socio-cultural norms restricting their social interaction.
• The main barrier faced by refugees, asylum seekers, displaced Yemenis, and host community members in accessing information is the lack of access to phones, electricity, and the internet.
• Refugees, asylum seekers, displaced Yemenis, and their host communities do not know enough about UNHCR Yemen's complaints and feedback mechanism, which enables the sharing of protection and assistance concerns through hotlines, complaint and feedback boxes in community centres and UNHCR offices, and emails managed by UNHCR staff.

UNHCR has learned that it is essential for emergency responders to understand different groups' and individuals' information needs, preferred channels, and trusted sources. Any engagement with communities must also take into consideration socio-cultural norms and traditional practices that may impact the access of specific groups - such as women, children, elderly persons, and persons with disabilities - to information and opportunities to impart this information to other members of the community or humanitarian partners. Specific recommendations are that UNHCR and its partners should:

• Continue to diversify modalities of communication with communities, mainly through community structures.
• Multiply efforts to ensure that displaced people receive adequate information on how to contact UNHCR and its partners.
• Adapt communication to the specific needs of different ages, gender, and diversified groups as much as possible. For example, for children: Apply easy-to-understand communication tools, such as simple posters and audio-visual (video, radio, etc.).

For more details and additional documents, visit UNHCR's Yemen operational portal.