Analysis

Analysis December 9, 2020 05:36 MIN Yemen Economic Bulletin: November Updates By Wadhah Al-Awlaqi Following an escalation in recent months, there was some progress by the end of November in mediating a solution to end the struggle between the two fragmented branches of the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) over access to financial data from the country's commercial and Islamic banks and money exchange outlets (for details, see: Yemen Economic Bulletin: Battle to Regulate Banks Threatens to Rupture the Financial Sector). According to banking officials in Sana’a who spoke with the Sana’a Center Economic Unit on condition of anonymity, the deescalation came after the two CBY branches – associated with the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the armed Houthi movement – agreed to the creation of a high senior banking mediation committee composed of… Continue reading Analysis November 27, 2020 17:59 MIN Yemen Economic Bulletin: Battle to Regulate Banks Threatens to Rupture the Financial Sector By Wadhah Al-Awlaqi The rival branches of the fragmented Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) have recently escalated their battle for control over access to data held by the country’s commercial and Islamic banks and money exchange firms, threatening the viability of the financial sector overall and risking a broad spectrum of economic and humanitarian fallout. This struggle comes as the latest salvo in the years-long economic war between the Aden-based CBY, affiliated with the internationally recognized Yemeni government, and the Sana’a-based CBY, controlled by the armed Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, with the former holding international recognition and controlling Yemen’s connections to global financial networks, while the latter controls the country’s largest markets and financial center. This year has seen the warring sides issue… Continue reading Analysis November 20, 2020 06:02 MIN Yemenis Must Face the Truth About Our War of Identities By Abdulghani Al-Iryani The war in Yemen, while still described as a political conflict between political factions, from the start had an underlying clash between two key identities: northern Zaidi tribes of the high plateau, historically referred to as Upper Yemen, who have dominated most of Yemen for centuries; and the Shafi’i farming communities from what was described as Lower Yemen, which served as the tax base of Zaidi rule. The time for well-meaning denials of the nature of the Yemen war as a conflict of identities has passed and we Yemenis have to face the facts to be able to deal with them. The armed Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, despite its modern structure, ideology and regional Shia dimension, is nothing more than… Continue reading Analysis November 20, 2020 12:33 MIN Q&A with Anna Karin Eneström, Swedish Ambassador to the UN By Waleed Alhariri, and Gregory D. Johnsen Among the international community, Sweden has played an outsized role related to humanitarian relief, the peace process and gender issues in Yemen. Sweden has previously co-hosted the annual High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen. On the diplomatic front, Sweden hosted the Yemeni parties that negotiated the 2018 Stockholm Agreement, and regularly raised humanitarian and gender related concerns in Yemen during its 2017-18 tenure on the United Nations Security Council. Since December 2019, Ambassador Anna Karin Eneström has been the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations. On October 12, she spoke with the Sana’a Center’s Gregory Johnsen and Waleed Alhariri about, among other things, the importance of involving women in Yemen’s peace talks and why now… Continue reading Analysis November 19, 2020 40:36 MIN Shabwa: Progress Despite Turmoil in a Governorate of Competing Identities By Casey Coombs, Majd Ibrahim, and Nasser al-Khalifi Shabwa governorate, perched centrally at the foot of Yemen's mountainous highlands and stretching to the Gulf of Aden, is at a crossroads of Yemeni identity as well as geography. As part of the former Marxist South Yemen that unified with the northern Yemen Arab Republic in 1990 and then attempted to break away four years later, Shabwa shares the southern sense of marginalization and alienation that has bred popular support for secessionist elements in recent years. In the 16 years that followed the 1994 civil war, many of Shabwa’s tribal and political elites were co-opted by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh into toeing the regime’s line. But those relationships did not prove strong enough to deliver the governorate into Saleh’s… Continue reading Analysis November 18, 2020 07:00 MIN The Houthi Movement from a Local Perspective: A Resurgence of Political Zaidism The Yemen War is often characterized in international media as a proxy war framed as part of the broader competition for regional hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia. An excessive focus on regional geopolitics creates a narrative that largely ignores the local drivers of the conflict and the historic context in Yemen that shaped them. This is critical in the case of Ansar Allah, otherwise known as the Houthis, a relatively young, militant, religious group that rose to power in recent years and whose objectives remain little understood or scrutinized by Yemen analysts and commentators who miss a crucial question: How is the Houthi movement understood from a local Yemeni perspective? To get a grasp of how the Houthi movement… Continue reading Analysis November 13, 2020 03:46 MIN The Riyadh Agreement One Year On By Hussam Radman One year ago, on November 5, 2019, the internationally recognized government of Yemen and the Southern Transitional Council (STC) signed the Riyadh Agreement. The agreement was intended to do two things at once. First, and most immediately, it was designed to halt the military confrontation between President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s forces and STC-aligned troops, which had reignited in August 2019, allowing the STC to take control of Aden as well as parts of Shabwa and Abyan. Second, the Riyadh Agreement was supposed to smooth over differences between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and their two allies on the ground. In brokering the deal, Saudi Arabia hoped to end the near-constant conflict within the anti-Houthi alliance, re-establish a strategic… Continue reading Analysis November 10, 2020 07:18 MIN Yemen’s Prisoner Exchange Must be Depoliticized By Nadwa Al-Dawsari In mid-October, the Yemeni government and the Houthis swapped 1,081 prisoners as part of the December 2018 Stockholm Agreement. The prisoner exchange sparked hopes, mainly among foreign observers, that this could be a first step toward peace in Yemen. UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths called it a “very important milestone” while the UN Secretary General called upon all parties to engage with his envoy to agree on a “Joint Declaration encompassing a nationwide cease-fire, economic and humanitarian measures, and the resumption of a comprehensive, inclusive political process to end the war.” While the prisoner exchange is a positive development, it should not be interpreted as a sign that either the Houthis or Hadi’s government are interested in ending the war.… Continue reading Analysis October 22, 2020 56:41 MIN Marib: A Yemeni Government Stronghold Increasingly Vulnerable to Houthi Advances By Casey Coombs, and Ali Al-Sakani Marib, a centrally-located governorate connecting Al-Bayda, Shabwa, Hadramawt, Al-Jawf and Sana’a, has undergone a drastic transformation since the war started in 2015, emerging as a booming economic, social, political and military center. Natural resources including irrigation from the Marib dam and oil and gas reserves were instrumental in building a bustling metropolis in Marib city over a short period. But it was the autonomy afforded by decentralization under Governor Sultan al-Aradah that harnessed those resources for local development. Obtaining its share of the national gas and oil revenues, for example, has helped fund the improvement of infrastructure, pay civil servants' salaries and build government institutions. Though hardly insulated from the war, Marib has become a haven for displaced people and… Continue reading Analysis October 19, 2020 06:34 MIN Q&A with Jonathan Allen, UK Chargé d’Affaires to the UN Ambassador Jonathan Allen has served as chargé d’affaires to the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations in New York since March 2020. He was appointed UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in August 2017, and was Acting Director General, Defence and Intelligence from November 2016 to April 2017. In correspondences with the Sana’a Center, Ambassador Allen discussed UK and UN Security Council policies regarding the Yemen conflict, UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia, UNSC Resolution 2216, and the potential for environment disaster in the Red Sea related to the Safer oil terminal: Sana’a Center: Your Excellency, on the sidelines of the 75th UN General Assembly in New York, your government co-hosted, along with Sweden and Kuwait, a meeting… Continue reading Analysis October 15, 2020 05:52 MIN With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends? By Abdulghani Al-Iryani It has become a requirement to use the expression “Iran-supported” whenever referring to Ansar Allah, more commonly known as the Houthis. The revivalist and repressive movement has taken over large parts of Yemen and embarked on a campaign to recast the Yemeni people and society in its own image: one that values martyrdom over life. It is also necessary, however, to be skeptical about the extent of Iranian support to the group. I have always argued that this influence has been exaggerated by Houthi opponents. No matter what the extent of Iranian assistance, the main factor behind Houthi successes over five years of conflict has not been Iran. Iran couldn’t have had that level of impact in the group’s victories… Continue reading Analysis October 10, 2020 15:11 MIN Wartime Challenges Facing Local Authorities in Shabwa By Omar Saleh Yaslm BaHamid Five years of war in Yemen have weakened local authorities’ ability to fulfil their roles in economic, social and cultural development and their financial and administrative capacity to provide basic services such as healthcare, education, electricity, water and sanitation. This paper gives an overview of wartime challenges faced by local authorities in Shabwa governorate, in southern Yemen. It provides an overview of administrative, financial and security challenges, such as corrupt hiring practices, tribal vendettas, weak rule of law and diminishing financial resources, and proposes recommendations to address these challenges. Insights shared at forums for the Shabwa Strategic Group, which brings together local authority officials, academics and civil society representatives, are incorporated in this paper, which also draws on interviews conducted… Continue reading