Ineffective aid management hinders Yemen's growth

By Faisal Darem in Yemen
For Al-Shorfa.com
2010-03-03

[-/AFP/Getty Images] More than 43% of rural Yemenis live in poverty.

Providing education and employment for Yemeni youth is the best way to tackle the root cause of extremism and foil attempts by extremist groups trying to draw them down the treacherous path of extremism and terrorism.

That was the view expressed by Abdul Kareem Bin Ismail Al-Arhabi, Yemen's deputy prime minister for economic affairs and minister of planning and international co-operation at a meeting between the Yemeni government and donors on February 27-28 in Riyadh. Officials in Yemen said the meeting showed there is a consensus between the two groups about the challenges facing the country.

Al-Arhabi stressed the need to accelerate Yemen's integration into the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), saying this step is the best way to improve the living conditions of Yemeni citizens.

Abdullah Al-Shater, deputy minister of planning and international co-operation, told Al-Shorfa that "the Riyadh conference has been organised to assess ways of improving Yemen's ability to effectively manage aid and its distribution mechanism in order to sign the remaining agreements."

Al-Shater added that the conference does not include signing additional pledges of aid to Yemen but was organised to discuss setting up a transparent mechanism for distributing previous aid pledges to the Yemeni government for development programs and projects that were agreed upon.

He said that the presence of the donors in Yemen will facilitate communication and settle questions related to disbursement of the remaining aid funds and implementation of projects whose financing was approved. Meanwhile, Yemen offered to open offices for donors in Sanaa.

The conference covered several topics, notably how to provide effective support to Yemen to address the most pressing domestic issues, including terrorism and unemployment, estimated at 16%, as well as poverty, which is higher than 43% in rural areas.

The Yemeni government delegation was also presented with a series of recommendations on the various mechanisms of aid distribution and possible solutions for determining the extent of aid needed.

Economist Ali Al-Wafi told Al-Shorfa that Yemen received only 20% of the aid pledged by donors during the 2006 London conference because of its inability to manage aid funds, which itself is the result of a lack of competence in Yemeni government institutions.

Al-Wafi said that "the amount of money pledged by donors during the London conference reached $5.7 billion. Yemen failed to make good use of these funds because it was unable to implement the development projects agreed upon with the donor countries."

He warned of a possible collapse in Yemen, especially in view of the budget deficit and the drop in oil revenues.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia announced it distributed the remaining $1 billion in funds pledged to Yemen during the London conference in 2006, according to Yusuf Bin Ibrahim Al-Bassam, deputy director of the Saudi Development Fund, during his speech at the joint workgroup meeting in Riyadh.

Dr. Abdullah Al-Faqih, professor of political science at Sanaa University, told Al-Shorfa that "the meeting in Riyadh, the upcoming meeting in Berlin, and the London conference, all mainly discuss the obstacles preventing the government from implementing its commitment to fight corruption, the lack of transparency, deteriorating security and poor infrastructure."

Al-Faqih said the international community, through donor conferences, will be awaiting with great interest the next steps. It is hoped that the Yemeni government will wake up from its slumber and be able to identify needs quickly before it is too late, according to him.

Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh's visit to Saudi Arabia on February 23rd, took on added significance, said Abubaker Abdulla Al-Qirbi, the Yemeni Foreign Minister, "especially with the end of the war against the Houthi rebels, and right before the donor conference in Riyadh that aims to support Yemen's effort in supporting development and fighting terrorism."

Al-Qirbi stressed that the leadership in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia considers security a priority for Arab joint action and the basis for development. Security co-operation between Yemen and Saudi Arabia has foiled many terrorist plots by extremist elements.

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