Armies of Liberation

I was shocked to learn many years ago that Taiz routinely only got public water every 45 days. In 2007, a Japanese concern came up with a comprehensive water strategy for Yemen, after a two year study, that included some very basic and logical recommendations. However institutional dis-coordination and competing interests, including those of qat barons and water merchants within the government, prevented its implementation. Over the years, the water issue evoked protests in Taiz, including one where people held up bread and empty water jugs to demand basic services including water. Clearly one of the issues going forward on all levels will be dislodging those with vested financial interests in corruption and dysfunction that inhibit reform. The medical sector is another example with similarly dire consequences. The following YT article is a broad overview of “Concerns over armed presence in Taiz,” and tensions regarding water are just one triggering factor.

Yemen Times, Taiz: “We ask the security committee to deal with these problems promptly. They keep giving the armed men 48 hours to put down their guns…but after these periods, nothing changes.”

Hawdh Al-Ashraf’s main road was closed when local residents protested after not receiving water from the government for more than two months.

“We are a big family and we cannot afford to pay YR 12,000 monthly for water tanks. We will keep the road closed until the state fulfills its promise to provide us with water,” said Nabeel Ahmad of Hawdh Al-Ashraf.

Fekra Mahmoud, a writer from Taiz, said that life in Taiz has been worrying as some young people “are immature and might be pushed by the regime or revolution supporters to do things such as fire gunshots in the air and close roads. We should all work to return life to normalcy in Taiz.”

According to a source that asked not to be named, there are people who want rampant insecurity in the city and who pretend that water and electricity problems are the motives behind closing roads. According to well-informed sources from the Republican Guards, representatives of the military committee withdrew from Taiz as they were called on by higher-ups in Sana’a.

This occurred simultaneously with the arrival of the military commission headed by Major General Nasser Al-Tahiri in Taiz. The major came to solve issues regarding checkpoints, the removal of armed figures and the release of prisoners.

An official source from the military commission denied that the withdrawal of Republican Guard from Taiz took place. He said that all the Republican Guard units in Taiz are committed, are under the guidance of the military committee and that they returned to their camps. He added that the commission is living up to its responsibility to restore security and stability to Taiz.

Many residents believe its a pressure tactic. the JMP is also blaming the regime. Collective punishment is a usual characteristic of Saleh’s response to unrest. Others note increased rates of smuggling but this article points to a cut pipeline and roads blocked by tribesmen. It may be a lingering effect from the missile strike that killed Sheikh al Shabwani.

Gulf Times: Though Yemen’s oil exports are a modest 105,000 barrels per day, its cash-strapped government depends on the revenue to pay civil servants, its army and fund most state operations. (Read on …)

Yemen Post: Late last year, I met with the Minister of Water and he clearly said that it is impossible to end qat plantation in Yemen. He himself is known to have massive qat farms in Ibb region, while he admits that he would not stop qat plantation in his farms until the government gives him other options. The minister is saying that he wants options from the government in order to stop qat plantation, as if he is not in the government and responsible for this tragic file. He forgets that it is his duty to save Yemen from water depletion.

Yemen Chewers Spend $ 7 Million on Khat a Day: Yemeni people spend about $ 7 million a day on khat, a stimulus tree chewed by 75 per cent of males, compared to 33 per cent of women, an official has said.
(Read on …)

One important issue that is not well understood regarding southern Yemen is the difference between loosely organized clans and cohesive tribes, a factor of rainfall levels. This article however discusses urban migration resulting from water shortages and the resulting impact on agricultural output.

Reuters: Farmers, 70 percent of the population, can no longer subsist on their own crops. Youths are flocking from the countryside to the cities in search of jobs to provide for their families. (Read on …)

All the more egregious because people there are starving and without water. They are allocating money to buy diesel when the Red Crescent already donated the diesel as well as overcharging and providing phantom services.

Update: English: Yemen Observer:

Studies & Economic Media Center (SEMC) revealed corruption scandals at Local Water Institution in Sa’adah province costing the government YR 100 million. (Read on …)

There are good plans to address many urgent issues in Yemen but they are not implemented fully. Power centers within the government thwart reforms to protect their profits. In other cases, coordination among semi-autonomous ministries is nearly impossible to achieve.
IRIN

SANAA, 10 August 2010 (IRIN) – Despite record rainfall in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and other areas this summer, very little is being done to harvest this water to mitigate water shortages, experts say. In May at least seven people were killed in what officials described as the worst flooding to hit Sanaa in a decade. Flooding has brought large parts of the city to a standstill on a number of occasions. Attempts by the government to harvest rainwater are very limited, according to Ramon Scoble, a consultant for Germany’s Technical Cooperation Committee (GTZ). (Read on …)

Yemen Post

Water scarcity, population growth and internal conflicts are major reasons for food insecurity in Yemen, a recent report has said, warning if immediate action is not taken, food security will remain at extremely low levels until 2010 and the country will be vulnerable for external shocks and disasters.
The report issued by the Institute of Food Research (IFR) noted that food insecurity is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. (Read on …)

The story that has everything: influential people deploying the army for political purposes, tribal conflict over water, the state bombing a village and utterly incompetent management. Water is another corrupt enterprise in Yemen. Also the Political Security director in Aden died of his wounds sustained in a bombing- actually a police officer. France 24

AFP – Two Yemenis, including a police officer, were killed and seven others wounded in clashes between security forces and locals over digging a well in a village south of Sanaa, local tribesmen said Friday.

Clashes erupted on Wednesday between the army and police, on one side, and locals on the other, in the village of Mikhlaf, in the province of Taiz. Sultan al-Mikhlafi, a local tribal chief told AFP the fighting was a result of a “military expedition sent by local authorities to the area to prevent the digging of a well for potable water…which has already been authorised” and is intended for public use.

“The forces shelled more than six houses,” he said, adding that the civilian Abdul Qawi Ali Hamid was killed by a shell that hit his house on Thursday. Mikhlafi accused “powerful people in the area with links to the governor” of being behind the military campaign to stop the work on digging the well.

As I noted earlier, corruption triggers media repression in Yemen. Often when journalists are kidnapped, beaten, imprisoned or, as in this case, murdered, it comes back to their investigative reporting on crime or corruption. While the extent of dire and growing water shortage is becoming clear, less obvious is the extensive black market on water, tied to powerful officials, sheiks and businessmen that impedes the implementation of water regulations and reforms. Al Rabue was murdered for exposing the dangerous quality of water sold by the water barons in Hajja. His family was attacked and injured a week earlier. In the climate of impunity established by the Saleh regime, a fair trial is unlikely.

Yemen Times: HAJJA, Feb. 17 — Journalist Mohammad Al-Rabue’, who wrote for Al-Sahwa and Al-Qahira newspapers, was murdered on his way to work, on Sunday, February 13, in Bani Qais district, Hajja governorate. The journalist, who wrote about the violations committed in the governorate was said to be killed by Ahmad Awoni and his four sons. (Read on …)

There’s no water in Aden, there hasn’t been for several weeks.

Demonstrations for water are turning violent. There was one casualty today. Children and the elderly are most vulnerable to dehydration and are bearing the brunt of the “water shortage.” In the current highly charged political environment, residents believe turning off the water is a deliberate targeting of citizens there in retaliation for prior civil unrest.

aha, a link: ADEN, Yemen, Aug 24 (Reuters) – At least one Yemeni was shot dead and three wounded when protesters clashed with police on Sunday in Aden in southern Yemen where several districts have gone days without water, police and witnesses said. At least two of the wounded were police, the sources said.

and a detailed background at the Yemen Times:

ADEN, Aug, 23 — Hundreds of Aden city residents protested yesterday, demanding relief from the sharp water shortage that has left three districts without water.

Seventy-five percent of the Aden water supply was re-directed to cities of Zunjubar and Ja’ar three months ago because of water crises in those cities. Now, residents of Al-Muala, Khower Makser and Alqlw’a have no running water.

Masses of people from the southern governorates of Aden, Lahj and Abyan rallied last week, demanding water and that corrupt officials be held accountable for their actions. Security officials met demonstrators with teargas and arrests.

The water has been off in Zanjabar since July 27, and they are taking it personally. IRIN

SANAA, 16 August 2009 (IRIN) – Water and sanitation companies in Yemen are adopting unprecedented water rationing in major cities including the capital Sanaa, Taiz, Mukalla, al-Beidha, al-Dhalea and Lahj, local council officials said.

Urgent action is needed to halt depletion of the country’s water resources, Abdulqader Hanash, deputy minister for water affairs, told IRIN. Some 90 percent of available water is used for agriculture, leaving just 10 percent for industrial and household use, he said. Specialists have said before that 40 percent of Yemen’s agricultural water consumption can be attributed to the cultivation of Qat – a mild narcotic plant. (Read on …)

One crisis exacerbates another: Yemen Observer:

Water supply for subscribers in the Capital Secretariat of Sana’a has decreased by 30-40 % as a result of a stop of more than 85 water pumps due to electric blackouts. Pumps stop working between 7-10 hours per day. If the situation were to continue, every neighborhood would get water once every 8-9 days, said a source at the Public Corporation for Water and Sanitation.

The Corporation is working hard to reduce this problem that represents more than 22 thousand cubic meter of water daily. The issue of water shortage in Sana’a in particular has worsened in the past few years due to several factors, the most important of which is groundwater depletion as a result of incorrect irrigation methods and qat growing.

Official statistics show that only 50 percent of Sana’a’s population, 2 million people, can be supplied with water. Just under 50 percent of people living in other Yemeni governorates can get clean drinking water. However, houses in many areas of Yemen are not originally provided with water supply service. In addition, some studies estimate that the stored water of Sana’a governorate will be exhausted in the next 10 to 15 years.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also highlights the health consequences of water scarcity, such as diarrheal diseases including cholera, typhoid fever and salmonellosis. Lack of potable water is also a common cause of food poisoning, other gastrointestinal viruses and dysentery.

Over a quarter of land is planted with Qat.

Yemen Post

A parliamentary report showed that the total agricultural land in Yemen increased to 490032 hectares in 2007, 13.8% more than in 2006. 141163 hectares of this land planted with khat, an increase of 3.9% compared to 2006. (Read on …)

Al-Motamar

Almotamar.net – A recent parliamentary report mentioned about a recession in services of sewage services by 53% and that has caused the emergence of a problem water pits of which the report said it is threatening the human, the environment and the groundwater basin.

A report by the parliamentary waters committee obtained by almotamar.net pointed out the sewage suffering network of the problem torrents that are not contained in designs of the sewage system, let alone flaws in the direct connection from the network and many factories’, institutions, hospitals, oil and car batteries shops and photography studios non-committing to safe riddance of their wastes before connection. (Read on …)

Corruption and the fractured nature of the government as well as bureaucratic inefficiency hinder progress on nearly every crisis the country is facing. The WB needs to stay on top of all funds in Yemen. And as the article notes, the strategy impacts the poor.

Bicusa

As Yemen suffers from water crisis, Bank support for water sector hinges on private sector solutions

8 December 2008

A recent meeting between the World Bank and the Yemeni Planning Minister focused on preliminary negotiations on a proposed water sector project. However, the central question remains whether the Bank is ensuring water access for the poor.

In October, the Yemeni news agency Saba reported on a meeting between the World Bank and the Government of Yemen that focused on discussions around a proposed $90 million grant to support Yemen’s national water strategy. Last week, the Bank disclosed documents that indicate new estimates on project approval and anticipated donor financing commitments, though they offer little in terms of substantive plans for the project.

Despite the large volume of money that is being committed for the project – with expected Dutch, British and German government contributions, the total is expected to surpass $380 million – it remains unclear what specifically will be financed. There is only scant information available from the World Bank, and the five-year national strategy on which the aid is based is not publicly accessible. According to World Bank documents, the Yemen Water Sector Support Project is expected to go to the Board for approval in February 2009.

At the same time, while the decision to finance Yemen’s water strategy as a Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp) lends to better donor coordination, it raises the possibility that the process is driven by and tailored to donors, whose expected contributions together account for nearly two-thirds of the cost of the project.

Yemen is the least developed country in the region, and one of the world’s most water poor countries in the world, where per capita availability of water is only 2% of the world average, according to the World Bank. Yemen’s water crisis has not only hindered the efforts to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth but has also resulted in social disputes over water wells and land ownership, as demand for water outstrips supply.

Rainfall represents the main source of water needed for agriculture and households, and nearly all of the rainfall evaporates. Reports show that about 90% of the ground water in Yemen is used for irrigation, mostly to grow qat, which accounts for roughly 40% of cultivated land. Meanwhile, in order to keep up with the increasing demand on water, landlords and private companies have been drilling unauthorized wells that have depleted Yemen’s groundwater.

Considering the depth of Yemen’s water crisis, the World Bank has rightfully emphasized water provision in its portfolio, as well as in its Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). Since 2000, the Bank has committed $303 million for the water sector, or 27% of approvals.

However, while preliminary project documents indicate that the bulk of the proposed Bank grant will support irrigation infrastructure and urban water systems, the nature of the investment remains unclear, including what if any policy changes in the water sector will accompany the grant. Typically, World Bank grants entail much more stringent conditions than loans that need to be repaid. To date, the Bank’s support for the water sector in Yemen has been predicated on fostering private sector involvement, particularly in urban water services, and in granting private companies the responsibility to assess water and demand levels and to determine prices. The Bank has also advised the government to lift subsidies on diesel, a major expense in qat cultivation

Some observers have raised concerns about how effective the World Bank’s interventions have been in addressing Yemen’s water problems, and questioned the impact and rationale of the Bank-supported strategies such as introducing water tariffs, encouraging public-private partnerships, pushing for a greater private sector role, and lifting subsidies on maintenance, spate irrigation, and diesel. These advocates have suggested that the Bank’s approach to date has placed a disproportionate emphasis on private sector solutions to Yemen’s pressing water needs, and that these efforts have not been accompanied by adequate measures to mitigate adverse impacts on the poor and ensure equitable access.

I just can’t take it anymore.

Yemen Times

SANA’A, Nov. 9 — A seminar on the hazards of using sewage water to irrigate crops was held on Thursday in Taiz during the Al-Saeed Forum for Sciences and Culture.

Chaired by Professor Abdulrahman Al-Zubairi, chairman of the department of Microbiology in the Faculty of Sciences at Taiz University, the seminar stressed the importance of immediate attention to the fact that a shortage of water resources has prompted many Yemeni farmers to resort to use sewage water to irrigate their farms.

Al-Zubairi explains, “The shortage of water is the result of both the increasing rate of population growth and irresponsible irrigation. Only seven percent of underground water is consumed by the population, while 93 percent is used for irrigating crops, especially qat.”

The total amount of water used annually is 3.5 billion cubic meters of which 93 percent is used in agriculture, 6 percent in households and 1 percent by industry. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, the renewed fresh water is 2.5 billion cubic meters per year creating a gap between used water and renewed fresh water of one billion cubic meters a year. (Read on …)

Right after AQ calls for more maritime actions…

The global shipping community has called upon the world’s naval powers to deploy more warships to patrol the commercially strategic Gulf of Aden to counter rising levels of piracy off the coast of Somalia.

The call comes in the wake of frequent incidents of piracy in the region, the latest being the hijacking of two vessels off the coast of Somalia Thursday.

In a joint statement, leading ship associations and transport unions said the situation is “spiraling completely and irretrievably out of control.”

They have made urgent calls to the United Nations in New York and its maritime body in London seeking the deployment of effective naval forces.

It is said that some shipping firms were already refusing to transit the Gulf of Aden.

The vital sea route in the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia connects the Gulf and Asia to Europe and beyond via the Suez Canal. It is critical to Gulf oil shipments.

Currently, Somali pirates are holding 13 vessels captive, along with more than 200 sailors. Most of the gangs are based in northern Somalia’s Puntland region, where security forces reportedly clashed with pirates on Thursday.

Yemen Times

(IRIN) – Hundreds of families (totalling about 2,000 people) in the southern governorate of Abyan have begun to leave their homes due to severe drought in their mountain villages, a senior official has said.

Sirar District, a mountainous area in Abyan, has been particularly badly affected since May.

Al-Khader Mohammed Saleh, director-general of Sirar District, told IRIN that over 300 families had left their villages over the past week as a result of the drought. (Read on …)

IRIN

SANAA, 14 August 2008 (IRIN) – Water availability in Yemen has been worsening by the year and the government has no clear strategy on how to deal with the problem, experts have said.

They say water shortages, which affect about 80 percent of the country’s 21 million people, are exacerbated by the high fertility rate, rapid urbanisation, the cultivation of `qat’ (a mild narcotic), a lack of public awareness, and the arbitrary digging of wells.

The experts made the remarks at a symposium on 12 August in Sanaa city organised by the Sheba Centre for Strategic Studies (SCSS), a local think-tank. Entitled Water Security in Yemen: Challenges and Solutions, the symposium brought together dozens of local officials and experts on water.

Khalil al-Maqtari, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and an expert of topography, said the water situation was worsening as there was no effective strategy to manage its use.
(Read on …)

Yemen Observer

Qat chewers are on a steady rise in Yemen, especially amongst young people, where qat chewers constitute 70 percent of men and more than 30 percent of women, said Mansour al-Hawshabi, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation.

Al-Hawshabi reported this rise during the opening of a workshop on policies for qat in Yemen, which took place in Sana’a on Sunday. “Qat occupies large areas of agricultural land at the expense of many crops, particularly important cereals,” he said.

The prevalence of qat is considered a significant obstacle to lifting the productivity of other crops. Qat plantations are expanding by 4-6 thousand hectares annually, which demand more than 30 percent of the total water resources allocated to agriculture.

Various surveys and studies show that 85 percent of qat cultivation is concentrated in five governorates: Amran, Dhamar, Sana’a, Hajja and Ibb. “Qat does not just pose agricultural and environmental problems, but it is a significant risk to the health of people especially when using pesticides indiscriminately,” said al-Hawshabi.

Qat has become a dilemma facing the expansion of food crops to provide food security, said Abdul-Karim al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation. “It is draining more than 30 percent of the water devoted to agriculture.”

“The spending on qat plants is a priority to people who put it above necessary expenses such as food, education and other important needs,” he said. “The risk indicators of qat have become clear and specific to all and we must sharpen our determination and efforts to address the problem of qat as a major challenge facing agriculture in Yemen.”

The cultivation of qat in Yemen rose from 136,138 hectares in 2006 to 141,163 hectares last year, and its production rose from 147, 444 tons to 156, 290 tons during the same period.

Qat’s popularity in Yemen has led to its excessive cultivation, depleting the country’s agricultural resources. It is estimated that production increases by about 10 to 15 percent every year. Water consumption is so high that groundwater levels in the Sana’a basins are diminishing and are expected to dry out in just a little over 10 years from now.