De la participación de expositores internacionales

While previous subsections of this chapter have concentrated on the political and historical causes of Yemen's fragility, what is instrumental to understanding the challenges that the country faces today is an appreciation for the significant resource competition generated by its rapid resource depletion and extreme poverty. In 2010, 42.8% of the population of Yemen lived below the poverty line on less than $2 per day, and poverty is said to have increased to over 60% in 2011 due

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to the disruption of industry and employment during the Arab Spring (Sadeq Al-Wesabi, 2011)72. This trend risks being aggravated further by rapid population growth – the product of Yemen's high fertility rate. Additional stresses on Yemen's socio-economic environment stem from its continuously shrinking resource base, with food, fertile land, water and oil being consumed at a rate that dramatically exceeds their realistically sustainable usage. Weak resource management and wasteful resource extraction practices compound these challenges, resulting in nationwide conflicts over resource distribution between North and South Yemen, increased intra-tribal competition and violence, uneven development between urban and rural areas, and physical confrontations between and within families.

Oxford Analytica write that “the most pressing issues that Yemen will have to deal with in the near future are the loss of oil reserves and the depletion of its water table”, with underground water reserves shrinking by a total of eight metres per year in some parts of the country (2009, p. 16). This high rate of water depletion stems from Yemen's lack of surface water, with the CIA World Factbook writing that the country's 527,968km² of land contain 0km² of surface water, leaving the 24,133,400 large population of Yemen vastly dependent upon underground reservoirs for their water needs (2011). While the Government of Yemen is exploring other viable alternatives to non- renewable water usage, such as constructing desalination plants along the Southern coastline, such projects have proven far too costly for the fragile state to implement on a sufficiently large scale to supply the entire country. Furthermore, unreliable rainfall patterns and the increasing availability of water mining technologies in Yemen has pushed many farmers to abandon the terracing of their fields (a traditional practice for collecting rainwater), and to switch to using underground water for their irrigation needs (Stakeholder Consultation, Food and Agriculture Organisation, 14 August, 2010).

A lack of coordination between farmers and others using the same underground water supplies, poor mining practices and a lack of legal infrastructure to protect underground reservoirs has led to the frequent collapse of underground caverns, contaminating water supplies. The World Bank summarises that:

Yemen’s water resources depend on rainfall, almost all of which is rapidly lost to evapotranspiration (ET). About 6% of rainfall runs off as surface water and flows into stream beds, often as violent spate torrents. Occasionally, very large rainfall events occur outside of normal patterns and cause destructive floods, as in Hadramout and al- Mahra in October 2008. ... Agriculture is estimated to use 93% of available surface and groundwater. However, rapid increases in water abstraction and use have affected the water balance. The rate of groundwater overdraft is currently twice the recharge rate, and is increasing, bringing depletion of water reserves, inequity, and shortages, with negative socio-economic consequences. Reforms to tackle water problems have been under-way for a decade but no headway has been made in reining in the rate of overdraft. (2010a, p. xii)

72 _{These facts are already mentioned in section 2.3, which outlined Yemen’s key demographics and geographic} characteristics. They are repeated here because this section will go into the reasons for their prevalence more thoroughly.

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A lack of capacity to deal with rainfall effectively, and a lack of built and maintained rainwater collection systems, has left Yemen extremely vulnerable to both flooding and drought. It is considered one of the most water starved countries in the world, with a water deficit of one billion cubic metres per year (Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2010).

The Yemeni oil sector – the backbone of Yemen's struggling economy – is facing similar challenges that have been aggravated by ineffectual domestic policies and destructive external economic trends. Oxford Analytica write that Yemen's:

oil exports ... have declined steadily over the past five years. The 75% drop in oil revenues in the first half of 2009 was a devastating blow. Though international oil prices have largely recovered from their initial decline following the global financial crisis, it is the decline in output in Yemen that is of most concern. Most experts believe that oil will run out by 2017, but the 2009 figures suggest this could happen sooner. (2009, p. 16)

Interviews with Yemeni members of state conducted in July 2011 indicated a strong reluctance among Government officials to admit to this claim, many stating that of yet unexplored areas of Yemeni terrain may reveal new, previously undetected oil supplies.

Liquid natural gas extraction has been listed as a potential replacement for the oil sector. However, what has become clear in recent years is that Yemen's single export-based economy model is unsustainable. This realisation has led both the Yemeni Government and its international and regional donors to channel their combined efforts into moving the country away from its oil dependency by focusing on the development of three other so-termed 'promising sectors'; those of agriculture, tourism and fisheries (Stakeholder Consultation, Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, 15 August, 2010, Interview Led by Sultan Barakat). It is worth noting that prospects for tourism enhancement in Yemen are limited by the country's international reputation for conflict, violence and terrorism, while the agricultural and fisheries sectors are extremely vulnerable to resource scarcity and increased competition.

Diminishing oil production in Yemen, which has coincided with high points in oil market prices, has meant that the Yemeni Government has failed to capitalise on opportunities to turn around sufficient profits from this resource to generate development in other sectors. Across the board, all ministries interviewed73 reported that their existing budgets are barely sufficient to maintain staffing requirements, let alone to launch new development projects. The inability of the Yemeni state to capitalise on oil revenues is linked to its internal policy of oil subsidies, whereby Yemenis are able to purchase oil at an extremely low rate in order to maintain their businesses. The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation states that these “Fuel subsidies absorbed on average 27% of the total [public] expenditures during 2006-08” (2009b, p. 7). Attempts to reverse this policy have traditionally been derailed by mass protests and rioting by Yemen's people – many of whom depend on oil subsidies to stave off poverty and starvation.

Although limited reductions to subsidies were made in 2010, leading to increased prices for diesel, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, kerosene, and gasoline; prices for these products in Yemen today remain on average 50% lower than global market rates.

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Figure 31 Yemeni woman carries grain from market in Sana'a

The need to cultivate Yemen’s oil and non-oil exports is compounded by two other large inter-connected resource deficits; those of food and arable land. Yemen’s climate is extremely changeable and prone to desertification. According to the CIA World Factbook, arable land accounts for only 2.91% of land in Yemen (2011). The Government of Yemen writes that:

Land problems are considered one of the most difficult challenges facing Yemen, as land has significant social and economic value in traditional Yemeni society. Land problems are a constant challenge to the rule of law, government authority, and social peace. In fact, land disputes directly account for 30 percent of all court cases and indirectly account for an additional 10-15 percent (through correlated issues such as land theft, forgery and related assaults). (2009, p. 7)

Land and water resources are a leading cause of violence and conflict in Yemen. For the Government, “modernizing ownership and proprietorship rights, improving dispute resolution procedures, and ensuring appropriate issuance of land titles in order for land to be used as collateral in lending” are top priorities, not only for stabilising the country, but also for developing its economy and virtually non-existent banking sector (2009, p. 7).

Such changes need to be implemented quickly, as Yemen’s already limited availability of arable land is currently shrinking, due to “Increased drought frequency, increased temperatures, and changes in precipitation patterns” (Environment Protection Authority, 2009, p. 1). The quality of arable land is also deteriorating due to over-use and poor agricultural practices. This simultaneously contributes to all of Yemen’s other resource-related problems, including those concerning water, oil and food.

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Qat farming accounts for the vast majority of agricultural production in the country. This is because qat is a relatively hardy, easy to grow cash-crop, which also happens to be the only legal narcotic available in Yemen, the use of which is unrestricted by most interpretations of Islamic law. The Government of Yemen and the World Bank Group write that:

Qat chewing is pervasive in Yemen, affecting every demographic group to varying degrees. Currently, it accounts for 6% of GDP, 10% of consumption, 1/3 of agricultural GDP and provides greater employment than the public sector, employing about 500,000 people (or 1 of every 7 Yemenis). Despite the significant economic opportunities for qat producers and suppliers, the net effect of qat consumption is negative for Yemen’s economic development. (2007, p. 43)

Qat farming is gradually replacing all forms of food production in Yemen, leading to an unfortunate paradox, whereby a predominantly agricultural society has grown entirely reliant upon food imports in order to stave off starvation. Yemen has become a net importer, with oil remaining one of its sole export commodities, the production of which was entirely disrupted in 2011 due to the Arab Spring. Ghazi Abdul-Rahman Al-Samia’y writes that “the percentage of people unable to meet their daily food requirements has increased to 20%”, and most have grown entirely reliant upon governmental and non-governmental handouts for their needs, leading to a crisis of protracted relief across the country (2009, p. 19). In 2010, the World Bank wrote: “Yemen has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world. Data from the Family Health Survey (FHS) of 2003 indicate that 53.1% of children under 5 are stunted, 45.6 per cent are underweight, and 12.4 per cent are wasted. ” (2010b, p. 14). These rates are likely to increase dramatically in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, which severely disrupted economic production and development in 2011.

Aside from reducing food production, qat impacts water, land and oil scarcity. Christopher Boucek explains that:

Because qat is more productive as it is given more water, there are no incentives to conserve water in irrigation. Farmers will therefore often over-irrigate their fields with little consideration given to the environmental after effects, including soil degradation caused by exhausting soil nutrients. (2009, p. 8)

Qat is considered by many analysts to be the leading cause of Yemen's sky-rocketing rate of water depletion. However, because water for irrigation is drawn primarily from underground, qat also requires considerable oil expenditures to run water-pumps and pipelines, contributing to high usage of Yemen's already scarce resources and placing tremendous strain on Government budgets by exploiting oil subsidies.

The Yemeni Government and its people have become locked into a pattern of resource depletion, whereby reversing high rates of resource use will require significant external investment over a prolonged period of time. Thus far, the Yemeni state has managed to avoid economic collapse only through continuing external support and oil production. However, donor support has tended towards extreme inconsistency in recent years, undermined by accusations of Government corruption, so that money pledged by international and regional donors is often reduced in practice and consistently fails to match funds eventually delivered and disbursed throughout the country. For instance, of the US $5.7bn pledged to Yemen at the 2006 London Consultative Group meeting, only

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10% had been disbursed in 2010 according to interviews conducted at the Ministry of International Planning and Cooperation, which has not been sufficient to reverse the country's fragility. Such funding is not adequate enough to develop Yemen's “promising” sectors in order to move the country away from its oil dependency.

Yemen's growing reputation for insecurity is causing the withdrawal of domestic and foreign investors to more financially stable climates, removing other forms of potential state income (Stakeholder Consultation, Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, 15 August, 2010, Interview Led by Sultan Barakat). Taxation is equally weak, and tax evasion, as well as low levels of contribution to government income, renders any existing investment socially sub-optimal in developmental terms (Chatham House, 2010). Within this socio-economic context, it is not surprising that poverty and resource scarcity are generating significant competition, which accounts for a large portion of violence, conflict and offences against the person committed in the country. Meanwhile the state remains both financially and physically unable to restore balance and equality to its people.