Wadhah Al-Awlaqi has served as the Chief Economist at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies since 2019. He has over a decade of experience in economic research, analysis, and policy development focused on Yemen. He held several key positions at the Central Bank of Yemen, overseeing strategic planning, financial reporting, budget management, and accounting operations. He holds an MBA in Finance from the prestigious KAIST Business School in South Korea.
Wadhah's latest contributions
Yemen Economic Bulletin:
The War for Monetary Control Enters a Dangerous New Phase
Since September 2016, competing branches of the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) have operated from either side of the frontlines in the country’s ongoing armed conflict, with the resultant fragmentation in monetary policy increasingly undermining domestic currency stability. Recently this has led to an accelerating collapse of the Yemeni rial-based … Read more
Yemen’s Expatriate Workforce Under Threat: The Essential Role of Remittances in Mitigating Economic Collapse
Scarce opportunities to earn a viable livelihood in Yemen have, for decades, driven hundreds of thousands of Yemenis abroad in search of work. Given chronically poor access to education in Yemen, the majority of these have been unskilled or semi-skilled laborers. The proximity of Saudi Arabia and the robustness of its oil-driven economy has made … Read more
Revitalizing Yemen’s Banking Sector: Necessary Steps for Restarting Formal Financial Cycles and Basic Economic Stabilization
Yemen’s banking sector faces a litany of challenges stemming from the country’s ongoing economic collapse and the warring parties’ competition for financial control. The most critical challenge is the division of the central bank between Sana’a and Aden and the fierce competition between these two branches over the administration and regulation of … Read more
Local Governance in Yemen Amid Conflict and Instability
Local councils are among Yemen’s most important state institutions. Responsible for providing basic public services to millions of Yemenis, local councils represent official governance and the Yemeni state for vast swathes of the population. The intensification of the Yemen conflict since March 2015 has undermined the councils’ ability to operate … Read more