Figure 21 Yemen and Its Geographic Position
Due to its geographic location and development status, the Republic of Yemen is affected by the political and economic fluctuations of both the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. The country shares a land boundary with Saudi Arabia and Oman, and overlooks Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea (See Figure 2161). As a result of this location and due to its comparative stability and weak border management capacities, Yemen has attracted numerous refugees and labour migrants from the North-East of Africa through shipping and sailing lanes, the majority of whom arrive from Somalia and Ethiopia62. Meanwhile, unemployed Yemenis tend to look to their wealthier Middle Eastern neighbours for employment opportunities, travelling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and other places, often illegally, in search of work (Stakeholder Consultation, International Organisation for Migration, 16 August, 2010).
Relations with its immediate neighbours have historically proven to be of crucial importance to Yemen. Many of its recent governmental development priorities, as listed in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation's National Reform Agenda (2010) and 10-Point Plan (2009), have involved building stronger regional relations within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in order to boost Yemen's struggling economy and business sector.
61
This map was taken from http://stpeteforpeace.org on November 12th, 2010, but was subsequently amended by the author.
62 See Chapter 3, section 3.10 on ‘Organised Crime’, for more details on how migrants use smuggling routes to get in and out of Yemen.
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Figure 22 Yemen's Twenty-One Governorates
Development across Yemen has always been uneven, with the North benefiting from trade routes with Saudi Arabia (particularly during the 1980s) and the South receiving strong material backing from the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Fred Halliday, 1990). Regardless of fluctuations in inequality, governmental development programmes traditionally favoured the centre over the peripheries, both before and after the formation of what is today the Republic of Yemen. Yemen is divided into 21 governorates (See Figure 2263). Infrastructure is strongest in Sana'a and its immediate surrounding areas, while the peripheral regions, which are mainly comprised of rural areas, are extremely poor.
Although 42.8% of the population in Yemen was classed as living below the poverty line in 2010, 29.9% of the country's urban population was considered to be poor, as compared to 47.6% of the rural population, with 'Amran, Abyan, Ad Dali, Al Jawf, Al-Bayda', Hajjah, Lahij and Shabwah reporting a poverty prevalence rate of over 50%, 'Amran reaching 66.4% (World Food Programme, 2010, p. 25). Only 31% of the population of the country is urbanised and the vast majority of the rest live in small rural communities with little access to government services (CIA World Factbook, 2012). In 2011, the overall rate of poverty across Yemen was said to increase to 60%, due to widespread disruptions in the labour market and government services, as well as the cessation of donor assistance and the withdrawal of humanitarian agencies (Sadeq al Wasabi, 2011).
63 This map was developed by Wikimedia Commons (2007) and can be found at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/
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Figure 23 Actual and Estimated Population Growth in Yemen, 1994-2014
Yemen's extreme poverty and underdevelopment are exacerbated by increasing competition for resources and employment opportunities, which emerges as a result of nation-wide resource mismanagement and more directly because of the country's rapid population growth. According to the Yemeni Central Statistical Organisation's Statistical Yearbooks of 2003 to 2010, the population of Yemen has grown from 14.59 million in 1995 to 22.49 million in 2010. The population is expected to grow further to approximately 25.96 million by 2014 (See Figure 23), although the estimated total fertility rate has recently fallen due to massive governmental awareness raising campaigns from an average of 8.7 children being born per woman between 1985 and 1990 to 5.3 per woman being born between 2005 and 2010, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (though the accuracy of such data is difficult to assess in light of Yemen's very weak rate of birth registration). The chief demographic implication of Yemen's rapid population growth is an emerging youth bulge: the median population age in 2010 was 17.9 years and 43.9% of Yemenis were aged under 14 years (CIA World Factbook).
The vast majority of Yemenis are ethnic Arabs who fall into either the Shaf'i Sunni or Zaydi Shia religious groupings, though a small number can be found who are members of the Jewish, Christian or Hindu faiths. Yemeni society is also extremely tribalised, so that tribal allegiances often take precedence over ethnic and religious identities64. The strength of these tribal structures has offered a communal support net to those living in hard-to-reach areas of the country in times when government infrastructure has proven inaccessible. However, these same tribal structures have proven remarkably resistant to centralisation, leading to repeated incidents of conflict between state authority and tribal legitimacy which have held important implications for Yemen's history and progress.
64
Chapter 5, section 5.3, will outline more thoroughly the details of Yemeni tribal divisions.
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 14.5 9 20.3 4 19.6 9 20.2 8 20.9 21 .5422.222.4 9 23.1 5 23.8 3 24.5 3 25.2 4 25.9 6 Actual Population Growth Estimated Population Growth Year P opul at ion ( M ill ions )
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It is tempting to think of the country's strong tribal system as one of the primary obstacles for the Government in its quest to secure legitimacy and sovereignty. In reality, the relationship between tribes and the state is not so clear cut. In Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, Paul Dresch writes:
the tribes themselves are the basis of what power most governments have ever held. Not only have many prominent figures in recent national politics been of tribal background, but the tribes themselves remain important, and one cannot follow the events of the last few decades, any more than those of preceding centuries, without some grasp of what the tribes amount to. In the midst of which the assumption is widespread that they will all one day disappear. (1993, pp. 28 – 29)
The tribal system in Yemen has been used by Yemeni governments as an administrative tool, particularly in more isolated areas that have proven difficult for state forces and bureaucracies to access. Where local reliance upon such systems has been very high for a protracted period of time, tribal identities have solidified and tribal structures have become entrenched. Conversely, where local reliance has shifted toward governmental services, tribal identities have gradually been eroded.
As Barbara Bodine observed in an interview conducted by Riz Khan, tribes in Yemen are not organised into one collective social unit that can be easily appealed to or accessed (2010). They do not have similar aspirations, goals, customs or philosophies, though they do have limited organisational sub-structures65. Depending upon where a tribe is located, tribal allegiances and intra- tribal connections become either trivial or hugely relevant, while tribes themselves are either broadly socially intermixed or isolated from one another.