For decades prior to the ongoing conflict, Yemen had been vulnerable to recurring budget deficits due to a lack of meaningful fiscal reform, high recurrent expenditures – mainly public sector salaries and fuel subsidies – and an overdependence on oil revenues. While foreign debt obligations remained low, the debt market was poorly diversified, with treasury bill holders narrowly concentrated within…

Seven years of war in Yemen have wrought widespread destruction and economic devastation and seen hundreds of thousands flee from their home country. Like many of their compatriots, a great number of Yemeni politicians now live abroad, where most struggle to maintain their power and relevance. While attention often centers on leaders of warring factions, this paper examines the situation…

The term Muwalladeen (m. sing. Muwallad; f. sing. Muwallada) refers to Yemenis whose families have historical links outside of Yemen, and who are in some cases of mixed origins (with a Yemeni father or grandfather and a non-Yemeni mother or grandmother). The term is often used in a derogatory way, and Muwalladeen have been the target of discriminatory practices for…

Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) secured regional pledges of support during a month-long tour of Gulf states and Egypt that began on June 6, but PLC head Rashad al-Alimi’s diplomatic successes were overshadowed by protests in southern areas. Demonstrations over fuel price hikes and deteriorating basic services shut down parts of Aden, where the Southern Transitional Council (STC) is the…

One of the challenges to ending the war in Yemen is the changing nature of the Yemeni state under Houthi rule. The Zaidi Shia movement has created facts on the ground that considerably complicate the work of bringing the various parties together in a new political arrangement. The de facto Houthi authority has effectively transformed the institutions of government in…

Elegantly dressed in the pilot uniforms of Yemenia Airways, Captain Khattab al-Naami, born in Taiz, and co-pilot Mohammed al-Ansi from Al-Jawf, looked nervous, as if they were about to take their first flight test. They were in fact about to fly one of the most important flights in Yemen’s history. The atmosphere was joyous as passengers awaited the departure of…

New Yemeni rial banknotes witnessed cyclic volatility over the course of June, depreciating by 10 percent relative to the United States dollar. Printed since 2017 and circulating in government-controlled areas, new rials lost almost 13 percent of their value in the first half of the month alone, falling from YR1,020 per US$1 to a low of YR1,150 on June 15,…