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…
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The Mandatory Celebration of Hardship
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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Marib: A Yemeni Government Stronghold Increasingly Vulnerable to Houthi Advances
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…
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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…
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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. A nation-wide fuel shortage ensued. Retail fuel stations…
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The Yemen Review – August 2018
In the last six days of August the Yemeni rial entered one of its steepest and most rapid declines in value since the conflict began, resulting in sudden price spikes for basic foodstuffs. Given Yemen’s overwhelming dependence on imports to feed the population, such changes in the rial’s value have direct implications for the country’s humanitarian crisis.
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