Review of national development issues

The pace of development in Yemen is slow, according to experts. The country is one of the poorest in the world. It comes 133rd in a list of 162 nations ranked according to wealth, according to the UN Human Development Report for 2001. The country now faces a population boom and suffers from a lack of job opportunities. Government statistics show unemployment to be running at around 30 per cent and slow economic growth means that jobs will become even more scarce in future. Forty-two per cent of the population are living below the poverty line of US $2 per day, according to the World Bank. “I think most of the Yemeni people have lost their trust in the government’s credibility, when it comes to carrying out development projects,” Sana University professor, Ali al-Faqeeh told IRIN in the capital. “For example, if the government decides to pave a street in the capital, there is a lot of bureaucracy involved and very lengthy procedures before the actual equipment and vehicles to carry out the work arrive in the street. Once the repairs start there is another lengthy process and the street is closed and cars cannot pass through the area for long periods of time, sometimes even for years,” he explained. “This creates an impression among people that the government is not serious about the projects it carries out,” al-Faqeeh added. Development projects are subjected to lengthy bureaucratic processes according to observers. Some believe that public sector projects need to be managed in the private sector in order to attain any degree of success and to meet targets. According to the recently published Ministry of Planning and International Co-operation (MoPIC) review, the five-year plan for development (2001-2005) has yet to achieve the targets set, despite the fact that the plan ends this year. A preliminary report on the performance of the development plan prepared by the MoPIC, confirms there has been a failure in many fields to achieve the aims originally set out in the programme. The report says the infrastructure and social services are still weak. It highlights the fact that 64 per cent of the population do not have access to safe drinking water and less than 30 per cent have access to mains electricity. Under nine per cent of roads in the country are metalled. The report quotes statistics showing that less than 50 per cent of the population have access to health services and 46 per cent of children suffer from malnutrition. The infant death-rate is 97 per 1,000 newborn according to the report. Deep divisions remain in social provisions between urban and rural areas. Rural areas are significantly worse off than urban areas. There are also divisions between males and females. Girls in rural areas have a particularly low rate of literacy the report notes. The document also highlights the country's chronic water shortage, describing it as one of the major challenges facing government. Development experts say there is an urgent need for improvement in several areas if Yemen is to stand any chance of achieving the development targets set. "To improve the implementation of development projects, the three major ingredients that are needed are, improved governance, improved public sector management and improved donor co-ordination," Mustapha Rouis, country manager of the World Bank in Yemen, told IRIN in Sana. In addition there is a requirement for improved procurement and financial management systems, while the efficiency of the public sector needs to be developed with the establishment of a well-motivated civil service, according to Rouis. Substantial work is required to improve the situation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Flavia Pansieri told IRIN. "We agree that there are serious development gaps in Yemen, which still need to be filled. It is important, for filling the gaps, that there be a participatory process of identifying the problems and identifying the needs and working together toward solutions,” she said. "This means [that] not just the government should do that but also involve the civil society, the private sector and the voluntary organisations," she added. "We do recognise that the development trends in Yemen have a long way to go but we are also optimistic that many of the essential conditions are already taking place to make progress towards achieving progress," she explained. Despite the fact that Yemen has some oil, it can no longer rely on oil revenues. The growth of revenue from oil is currently minus 0.3 per cent according to the report. In spite of this, government officials remain optimistic. "Any plan has some positive and some negative aspects. Our five-year plan is one of those frameworks [intended] to co-ordinate all the efforts of the sectors," Deputy minister at the MoPIC, Mutahar al-Abbasi, told IRIN. "We recognise the fact that in some areas we have not fulfilled the targets but in other sectors I think we achieved more than we were expecting. Like in telecommunications, we were planning to have 1 million telephone lines in the country but we have now reached 1.4 million lines. But in other areas we can't really say that we have good results because other elements effect that, for example the electricity service. We could not really achieve a lot," he added. Al-Abbasi said there are many reasons for such slow progress. "Some of it is due to financial resources not being available and some of it is down to the institutions themselves," he explained. The MoPIC is preparing a comprehensive report to answer the big question of why such a gap persists between the original aims and the actual achievement of development projects. The report will provide parliament and the cabinet a review for the five-year plan for development, al-Abbasi confirmed. "The Yemeni government meets a lot of challenges regarding fulfilling its five-year plan for development, some of them structural and some of them external challenges. For example, our country is a very poor country, with low human resources and not enough financial resources, on the other hand our population is growing rapidly as well as scattered all over the country. That means we need a lot of services for each small groups living here or there," al-Abbasi explained.