Even before the current conflict, Yemen’s public finances suffered from an overdependence on energy exports, one of the lowest tax collection rates in the world, and chronic budget and balance of payments deficits. The government’s consistent operating deficits were funded through domestic debt instruments – drawing investment away from the private sector – borrowing from its own central bank, and foreign loans.
Read more...Publications
Read also in Publications
Navigate Publications by year:
-
Seen Only in a Saudi Shadow: Why the US Misunderstands and Missteps in Yemen
The United States does not have a Yemen policy. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: the United States has never had a Yemen policy. What it has – what it has always had – is a Saudi policy that dictates and determines its actions in Yemen. For the US, Yemen is an add-on country, small enough and unimportant enough to be out-sourced. Periodically, of course, there are moments of crisis that demand more focused attention from US policymakers.
Read more... -
Inflated Beyond Fiscal Capacity: The Need to Reform the Public Sector Wage Bill
This policy brief addresses the issue of Yemen’s bloated public sector. Due to decades of corruption and patronage appointments, among other factors, public sector salaries were already a source of fiscal stress prior to the ongoing war. Previous efforts to downsize the public sector, notably those supported by the World Bank, produced few tangible results, as this brief outlines.
Read more... -
The Sana’a Center is Seeking a Full-Time Translator
**This position has been filled and applications are no longer being accepted** The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies is seeking a full-time Arabic-to-English/English-to-Arabic Translator. As an independent Yemeni research center, we occupy the unique position of being headquartered in Sana’a, operating in all areas of Yemen, and maintaining access with almost all local, regional and international stakeholders in the ongoing…
Read more... -
Priorities for Private Sector Recovery in Yemen: Reforming the Business and Investment Climate
The business and investment climate for private sector actors in Yemen has long been challenging. The current conflict has expanded and magnified these changes such that today Yemen is last or near last in a host of global business competitiveness indexes. Many businesses across the country have closed and moved their capital elsewhere, while many of those that remain open…
Read more... -
The Sana’a Center Editorial Where Coalitions Come to Die
Yemen is the cemetery of invaders, or so the ancient proverb goes, and today it is certainly the burial ground of foreign military coalitions. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sent their armed forces to lead a regional intervention into Yemen, thinking it would last only weeks.
Read more... -
The Southern Implosion – The Yemen Review, August 2019
August saw the Saudi-Emirati military coalition implode as its partners in southern Yemen turned on each other in dramatic fashion. This followed a Houthi strike on a military camp in Aden on August 1 that killed a top southern commander and provided the catalyst for a separatist group's takeover of the city, which is the interim capital of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
Read more... -
The Sana’a Center Editorial The March on Al-Mahra
The reasons the Yemen War began are fundamentally different from why it continues today. All parties to the war – local, regional, and international – have exploited the chaos and collapse of the state to pursue their own vested interests. Among these: powerful actors in the armed Houthi movement have accrued vast sums of wealth through aid diversion and exploiting…
Read more... -
An Interim Capital of Carnage – The Yemen Review, July 2019
The reasons the Yemen War began are fundamentally different from why it continues today. All parties to the war – local, regional, and international – have exploited the chaos and collapse of the state to pursue their own vested interests. Among these: powerful actors in the armed Houthi movement have accrued vast sums of wealth through aid diversion and exploiting…
Read more... -
Transitional Government in Post-Conflict Yemen
This policy brief offers recommendations to maximize the effectiveness of governance in post-conflict Yemen – whatever the composition or structure of the government. It presents three case studies on government models previously introduced in Yemen, Tunisia and Lebanon after periods of instability. These case studies offer useful lessons on the challenges, risks and opportunities of forming transitional governments in post-conflict contexts.
Read more...