Armies of Liberation

Yemen is the only nation that signed onto the UN convention granting refugees status to those fleeing war. Since then the lack of international support, and corruption and inefficiency within the UN offices, meant that Somalis in Yemen are trapped in a life of poverty and hunger with few options but to illegally migrate to Saudi Arabia and beyond. The refugees strain the government’s meager resources and many have no access to education, medical services and jobs, but then neither do many Yemenis.

IRIN: SANAA, 9 August 2010 (IRIN) – Straining to cope with the number of Somalis arriving by boat, Yemen is seeking to end the prima facie refugee status (automatic asylum) it has been giving them for the past 20 years. The government says some are economic migrants and should not be granted automatic refugee status, while others are militants seeking to join al-Qaeda groups to destabilize the country. (Read on …)

CBY already injected 20% of its reserves as purchasing power shrinks amid continued public insecurity. A Yemeni economist earlier postulated that excessive money laundering has had a negative impact on the value of the riyal.

Yemen Observer Yemeni riyal fell further against the US dollar as the central bank pumped $57 million into the exchange market, the latest of a series of cash injections to support the tumbling currency which hit a record low this week. (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 second most malnourished child population in the world is going to lose aid from the World Food Program unless donors step up to the plate.

YEMEN: Food crunch warning for July

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) Date: 07 Apr 2010

Aid organizations are warning of a food crisis in Yemen unless international food aid funding is dramatically increased before June 2010.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has only received a quarter of its annual budget for 2010 (US$25.6 million out of $103.2 million), and will run out of food for 3.2 million people by the end of June. (Read on …)

WFP hunger hotspots: Yemen – 20 Nov 2009
Source: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
20 Nov 2009

Lack of funding has kept the CP on hold since June; under the HFP EMOP, 40 percent of mothers and children will not receive nutrition assistance for six of the 12 planned months. Overall, limited and late funding will leave 1.4 of nearly 1.7 million beneficiaries of the CP without assistance in November.

Following a three-week blockade of supply routes to Sa’ada town in October, WFP has been able to re-supply. Planned distribution to 55,500 IDPs in the town and camps is expected to begin 17 November. (Read on …)

Higher rates than Africa and North Korea, Yemeni kids are the second most hungry child population in the world:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Nearly 200 million children in developing countries suffer from stunted growth and health problems due to poor nutrition in their early years, the U.N. children’s foundation UNICEF said on Wednesday.

However, the percentage of children with retarded growth in Asia fell to 30 percent last year from 44 percent in 1990, and in Africa to 34 percent from 38 percent over the same period, UNICEF said in a report…

“More than one third of children who die from pneumonia, diarrhea and other illnesses could have survived had they not been undernourished,” she said.

UNICEF said that countries with the highest prevalence of stunted growth among children under the age of five include Afghanistan (59 percent), Yemen (58 percent), Guatemala and East Timor (both 54 percent), Democratic Republic of the Congo (46 percent) and North Korea (45 percent).

The 1,000 days from conception until a child’s second birthday are the most important for growth and development, the report said. Insufficient nutrition during this period can permanently harm the body’s ability to ward off and overcome diseases and damage a child’s social and mental development.

Stunted growth, UNICEF said, can rarely be corrected. However, Veneman said it can be prevented and programs to improve access to iodized salt and vitamin A supplements in Africa and Asia have improved the situation in some countries — and led to a reduction in infant and child mortality.

Yemen Post

One Third of Yemenis Suffer from Chronic Hunger: YMS

Yemen Media and Studies Center (YMS) warns of the exacerbation of poverty in Yemen, after specialize International researches signs shown an erosion of a new segment of Yemenis below the national poverty line, reported media outlets.

The center added that at the time the world celebrates the World Food Day, the food is still out of reach of many Yemenis. More than one out of three Yemenis suffer from chronic hunger, the study said. (Read on …)

UNICEF

AL-MAZRAK, Yemen (October 8, 2009) — Ghonia Jaber cries and wriggles in the doctor’s lap as he takes her measurements to determine whether the 14–month–old is malnourished.

She is just one of the children UNICEF has screened for malnutrition in the Al-Mazrak camp for people displaced by conflict in northern Yemen. The camp is located some 25 miles from the town of Harad in the deserts of western Yemen.

Living conditions here are tough. All 12 members of Ghonia’s family live under one tent. But it’s better than the situation back in their remote mountain village in Sa’ada province, where fighting is still raging. When the conflict reached their village, Ghonia’s family walked for four days before they reached the camp, exhausted from the effort.

Fighting in the north of the country, pitting government troops against Houthi rebel forces, has forced 150,000 people to flee. The crisis is taking an especially heavy toll on children. Since the conflict intensified in August, cases of severe malnutrition have increased threefold. (Read on …)

frm the Yemen Post:

Like Ali, thousands of Yemeni women work in unpaid jobs and these jobs include farming, herding, collecting firewood, etc. They are denied any rights. They receive no medical care or education.
Compared to women of rural areas who work in unpaid jobs, the unemployment rates hit high among urban area women. There is just a small number of women who work in public and private sectors.
According to official statistics, women’s unemployment rates reaches 39 percent in Yemen while it is just 16 percent among men. (Read on …)

Some women in Yemen believe they are subordinate to men. Some don’t. One time one of the “hard Muslims” as he called himself, told me that women have only half a brain. So I asked him if he ever met a smart woman and a stupid man, was it possible a woman’s half brain could be larger than a small brained man? He didn’t have an answer for that or the question, why would God give women talents if not to use them? He just started ranting he loved Osama bin Laden and offered to send me a book

State report on women issued
SANA’A, June 11 (Saba)- Woman National Committee (WNC) issued its recent state report on challenges facing women, empowering her and future tendencies to promote her in different fields, political, economic, cultural and social.

Granting the two sexes equal opportunities to get work based on equity in all issues included in the report.

Women limited and weak political participation, women parliamentarian representation, enacting with quota demand, woman lower participation in the work, illiteracy spread, increasing mortality percentage among woman and false conceptions on woman’s issues are the main issues the report talked about. (Read on …)

Drops 8 points in first quarter, News Yemen

Governor of Central Bank of Yemen Ahmed al-Samawi said on Tuesday that the rate of inflation was decreased to 2.1 percent last February compared to 10.2 percent at the end of last year.

In a meeting with the delegation of the International Monetary Fund, al-Samawi confirmed that the condition of the banking system in the country is safe and was not affected by the global financial crisis as there is not local stock market and measures adopted to avoid such crisis in the banks.

Yemen is unable to absorb donor aid in a constructive and transparent manner. A large percentage of aid, grants and loans- beyond the 5.5 bil- have also not been utilized or were diverted. Yemen Post

SANA’A // More than two years after a donors conference in London pledged US$5.5 billion (Dh20bn) to help Yemen, just over $375 million has been disbursed. The challenge now, according to a top World Bank official, is obviously translating those pledges into action.

“We made significant pledges of financial and other assistance in London, but the challenge is now one of implementation, of ensuring that these pledges translate into actual action on the ground, and that the activities we finance are true priorities for the country,” said Daniela Gressani, the World Bank’s regional vice president for Middle East and North Africa. Almost half of the pledges – $2.5bn – came from Gulf states.

Nabil Shaiban, Yemen’s general director of international co-operation at the ministry of planning and international co-operation, said the delay in using the funds was because of the time needed to meet donors’ requirements for allocating the money. (Read on …)

The SNACC is going to bring it to the President’s attention. There is no information if there are irregularities in the forms submitted. Also Parliament is asking for prosecution of officials who stole YR72 billion in 2007 through corruption

Yemen Observer: The Supreme National Authority for Combating Corruption (SNACC) is taking legal procedures to refer 3 ministers, 8 governors, and 40 ambassadors to the judiciary, pursuant to article 24 of the second chapter of Anti-Corruption Law, according to SNACC member Ahmed Qurhesh. (Read on …)

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 …)

Saudi potatoes are causing a stir this year, and all agricultural enterprises in Yemen need support considering 90% of grains are imported. More on the dramatic decline in wheat imports below the fold.

Yemen Post

Farmers of Marib province confirmed that the citizens’ losses are estimated to be hundreds of millions that are going even higher if the ‘export mafia’, as they said, continues damaging the national economy of the country.

A number of farmers in Marib province threatened to stop the supply of gas to the capital Sanaa in response to ignoring their repeated demands by the competent authorities for stopping potatoes import from various countries. (Read on …)

The corruption is predictable but the UN’s incompetence and complacency in the face of these disasters, from the refugees, to Sa’ada to Hadramout, is staggering.

IRIN

SEYOUN, 1 April 2009 (IRIN) – Delays in distributing food aid are generating anger and despair among people in the southern Yemeni governorate of Hadhramaut affected by the October 2008 floods, flood-displaced people and community leaders say.

“We only received food rations for one month after the disaster,” said Issa Awadh Sedan, a mason from Mashta, a severely affected part of Tarim District in Hardhamaut. Sedan lost his house in the floods which left 47 dead and displaced 25,000 others. (Read on …)

Its not really news but goes to the point of elite capture of foreign aid and donations. The numbers are staggering and a good part of the responsibility lies with the donors themselves. One third ( update: 40%) of all Yemenis suffer malnutrition, kids are literally wasting. Development projects where they are carried out are carried out poorly with lack of oversight due to the patronage network. Funds are regularly diverted for cars and other perks for officials. Yemen is paying substantial interest on “unused” loans.
YT

Over 80 percent of the 75,000 tons of wheat were distributed to 1,037,000 people registered with the Social Insurance Fund across the country. The distribution process is being carried out by the Yemeni Economic Corporation (YEC). (Read on …)

Part of the reason family planning rates are low is cultural, which leads back to the following article’s point about the importance of media campaigns, but clearly another contributing factor is the deep corruption in the Health Ministry which substantially and negatively impacts every citizen.

SABA

51% of Yemeni Women don’t use means of family planning in society of high fertility rate

Studies and Figures

Number of government and non-governmental organizations reveals an improvement in the demand for family planning methods among Yemen families who actually using family planning methods, whether traditional or modern ones. According to a multi-indicator cluster survey 2006, 7.27% of married women are using the family planning methods.

The survey showed that the number of women in cities is higher than rural rates by 42.3% and 21.1%, respectively, the age of play a great role in that as the group of 35-39 years were more popular by 35% to 10.4 % for the age group 15 – 19 years. The economic situation index showed that 43.7% of women belong to rich families compared to 17.7% of women from the poorest groups. (Read on …)

HOOD

The tragic ordeal in al-Ja’ashin continues as villagers continue to face aggression from Sheik Mansour in the al-Ansieen province of Ibb. Sheik Mohammed Mansour is continuously demanding that villagers pay him taxes on a variety of pretexts. He has confiscated their possessions, and residents are again displaced outside the village. (Read on …)

A very stark stat that is increasing

Yemen Times To help the over half a million poor Yemenis affected by high and volatile food prices, the United Nations’ (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) is to deliver USD 24 million worth of food aid to eight governorates in Yemen…One in three Yemenis now suffers from chronic hunger, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2008 State of Food Insecurity report…

The WPF office in Yemen conducted a survey in mid-2008 which showed that poor Yemeni families were forced to spend up to 65 percent of their income of food, at the cost of children’s health and education.

The WFP’s emergency relief program in Yemen will target two groups. First, the organization will provide nutritional supplements to under-fives as well as under-twos and nursing mothers in specific districts. Second, it will ensure targeted food distribution to the country’s poorest families as determined by previous surveys.