Sana'a

Yemen Review section March 9, 2023 08:11 MIN January-February 2023 Govt Receives New Financial Support By Wadhah Al-Awlaqi On February 21, Saudi Arabia agreed to supply the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) in Aden with a US$1 billion deposit to prop up Yemen’s faltering economy and support the value of the rial in government-held areas. The aid will not be deposited directly with the CBY-Aden, but rather handled through the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) as part of the AMF agreement announced in November. Access to the new money is expected to be granted soon given the progress the government has made to implement reforms demanded by Saudi Arabia, but the inflexible structure of the support could limit the central bank’s capacity to auction foreign currency to stabilize the rial and finance the import of basic commodities. The timing… Continue reading The Yemen Review February 20, 2023 27:56 MIN Yemen Annual Review 2022 By Sana’a Center Staff The past year has been one of extreme consequence for Yemen. The war has entered a new phase of low-level violence and economic warfare. Casualties are down since a truce was signed in April, and have remained relatively low even after its acrimonious expiration in October. The internationally recognized government has sworn in a new executive body, but it has been unable to bridge internal rifts or reverse the territorial and economic decline of recent years. The United Arab Emirates has fully re-engaged in Yemen through a variety of proxy groups, most importantly the secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC), which holds sway across much of southern Yemen. Saudi Arabia is pursuing talks of its own with the Houthis, though its… Continue reading Analysis November 14, 2022 03:59 MIN October 2022 Failed Truce Reflects Houthi Willingness to Leverage Gov’t Divisions, Global Needs By Omar Munassar The UN-brokered truce in Yemen that collapsed October 2, despite efforts to prolong it, disappointed Yemenis and those in the international community who had hoped it could be the groundwork for a lasting peace agreement ending more than seven years of war. During the preceding six months, the truce lessened some of the conflict's devastating effects. Economically, it allowed for restrictions to be lifted on foreign fuel shipments entering the Hudaydah port as well as on commercial flights from and to Sana’a International Airport. Politically, it quieted frontlines, especially in flashpoint regions like Marib, and increased popular optimism for lasting peace. Aside from that, it shielded Saudi Arabia from energy security threats that had been prevalent for years due to… Continue reading Analysis November 14, 2022 04:35 MIN October 2022 The Mandatory Celebration of Hardship By Maysaa Shuja Al-Deen In the past, the Yemeni state celebrated only holidays that held national significance. These included the anniversaries of several major political moments in Yemen’s history: September 26, marking the ousting of the Imamate and the establishment of a republican regime in the north; October 14, commemorating the start of the uprising against British colonial rule in the south; November 30, marking the south’s declaration of independence from the United Kingdom; and May 22, commemorating the unification of north and south and the birth of the Republic of Yemen. Other public holidays included religious occasions such as Mawlid al-Nabi (the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday), the beginning of the Islamic new year, and the two Eid festivals, Eid al-Adha during Hajj and Eid… Continue reading Yemen Review section September 8, 2022 02:18 MIN August 2022 Summer Flooding Affects Thousands Flooding continued to devastate areas across Yemen in August, with at least 51,000 households reportedly affected since April 2022. In mid-August, a spokesperson from the Houthi Supreme Council for Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced that in the areas under their jurisdiction, 91 people had been killed and close to twenty-five thousand families affected by flooding and heavy rains over the past few days. One hundred and forty houses were completely destroyed and about 1,360 had their roofs collapse. The total number of affected houses is around 5,700. A large number of houses were either partially damaged or collapsed in different parts of Sana’a. In the Old City, heavy rain caused severe damage to the roofs of many houses,… Continue reading Yemen Review section August 12, 2022 00:21 MIN July 2022 Heavy Rains Flood Sana’a’s Old City Heavy seasonal rains in July and August caused flash flooding across Yemen, cutting roads, destroying homes and crops, shifting minefields, and causing a number of deaths. The floods have affected more than 16,000 internally displaced families, who live in rudimentary shelters unable to withstand harsh weather. Many Yemeni houses are built from mud, increasing their susceptibility to structural damage from heavy rainfall. A number of roofs have already collapsed, and many fear theirs will follow if the rain continues. Continue reading The Yemen Review March 3, 2022 279:55 MIN The Graveyard of Hubris – Yemen Annual Review 2021 Through most of 2021, the armed Houthi movement appeared unstoppable. As their forces pushed relentlessly toward Marib city, the fall of the last government stronghold in the north began to seem inevitable. Rich in oil and gas, its loss would be a mortal blow to the spiraling economy and political legitimacy of the internationally recognized government. Along frontlines across the country, Houthi forces either held their ground or advanced, showing a cohesiveness, discipline and effectiveness unmatched by the motley array of armed groups opposing them. Houthi drones and ballistic missiles flew across the border into Saudi Arabia, and continued even in the face of retaliatory airstrikes, heightening the cost of conflict for the coalition. Houthi military efforts were buttressed by… Continue reading Main Publications September 6, 2021 17:28 MIN Local Economic Councils: A Tool to Improve Business Productivity in Yemen Even before the events of 2014 and 2015 that led Yemen into the ongoing civil war, its economy was fragile. The years of hardship that have haunted the country ever since have been devastating. Yemen is now rated as one of the hardest places in the world for businesses to operate and is last or near last in a host of global business competitiveness indexes. From January 25-27,2021 the seventh Development Champions Forum, held virtually, focused on this dire national situation. To help address local economic challenges, the Development Champions discussed the possibility of establishing Local Economic Councils. According to their analysis, between the existing community-level local development committees (which guide targeted, small scale infrastructure investment from development funds such… Continue reading The Yemen Review July 14, 2021 94:51 MIN Eye on the East – The Yemen Review, June 2021 Through periods of tolerance and persecution, marginalization has remained a constant in the treatment of racial and religious minorities in Yemeni society. During the ongoing conflict, however, violence and subjugation against these marginalized groups has increased dramatically, to the point that it is fundamentally reshaping Yemeni society. For Yemen as we know it to continue to exist it needs to assure the existence of its minorities, as something fundamental to the makeup of a nation dies when its minorities perish. Yemen’s Jewish community, with a history tracing back millennia, played a foundational role in developing Yemeni culture and commerce, and creating much of the artisanal industries for which the country is known. While the community had already been dwindling in… 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 April 3, 2020 07:59 MIN Sana’a From March 2015 to Today: A Study in Authoritarian Oppression Five years following the intervention of the Saudi-led coalition into the conflict in Yemen, the manifestations of destruction and war in the Yemeni capital Sana’a are evident. Intensive bombing by coalition aircraft in 2015, and to a lesser extent, lighter shelling during the subsequent war years damaged governmental and private structures. The Republican Palace, the president’s official residence, the army command headquarters and family homes of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh and some regime officials are no longer aesthetic attractions or formal landmarks, only ruins. In December 2017, Baghdad Street and the vicinity of Saleh’s house in Al-Thania neighborhood became part of a tapestry showcasing the aftermath of the war between the Houthis and their former ally. Checkpoints still… Continue reading The Yemen Review October 8, 2018 34:33 MIN The Yemen Review – September 2018 In September, the Yemeni rial’s recent decline accelerated precipitously, with the currency’s value dropping to record lows by month’s end. While the rial has been under multiple, intensifying pressures stemming from the war for several years, a large increase in the money supply – through a 30 percent increase in civil servant salaries – and the collapse of peace talks last month appear to have spurred a rial sell-off in the market (see ‘Domestic Currency Hits Record Low’). A nation-wide fuel shortage ensued. Retail fuel stations closed en masse and prices for available petrol on the black market jumped an average of 130 percent relative to August, and as much as 230 percent in some areas (see ‘Fuel Shortages and… Continue reading