Yemen: Poverty, Water Crisis and Gender Inequality

ABSTRACT

Intro:

In 1990, the Southern and Northern part of Yemen were united and formed « Republic of Yemen ». It is a country located in Western Asia.

According to the World Bank in 2006, Yemen is represented as the biggest development challenge in the Middle East.

The social, economic and political issues of the country have led to greater instability.

In fact, a civil war began in March 2015 in Yemen and the conflict situation has resulted in catastrophic humanitarian conditions. Today, the most important short term problems which results from conflicts are maybe the severe food insecurity which affects 7.6 million people and the violence but this report will deal with the long term problems.

The aims of this paper are to examine and analyse 3 major challenges to sustainable development in Yemen and to provide adequate answers for overcome them.

The gender equality, the water and finally the poverty will be at the heart of the matter.

These issues need to be treated by an uncorrupted policy and a civil society.  

Fortunately, positive signs are emerging in Yemen, more and more women are trying to make their voices heard for example and potential solutions for solving the water crisis and poverty will be developed in this report.

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Source: National Geographic [Online] Available from: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/yemen-guide/

Yemen

Partie 1: Water crisis

We can see with this data that Yemen is confronted to a severe water scarcity. The proportion of total population served with improved water in 2014 is 55,19 % and the proportion of urban pop served with improved water is 46,53 %.

Tableau :

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http://knoema.fr/WHOWSS2014/who-unicef-water-supply-statistics-2015?location=1002360-yemen

The main causes and consequences of water stress will be studied first and then the solutions in a second time.

A main cause of water crisis is first a high population growth (2.6 according to UN data) which increase the demand.

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Another cause is the unsustainable agriculture and irrigation practices for qat production (it is a narcotic plant which represent about 37 percent of water used) for example. Yemen have a poor management of groundwater aquifers, indeed they are exploited beyond the renewal rate so groundwater decline, varying between 1 to 8 meters per year in some region.

The last important cause is the climate change because this seriously affects the water availability in Yemen. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the vulnerability because Yemen will become drier and hotter, it will decrease the rainfall and agricultural yields, finally it will increase the temperature and the seas level.

Map 4: Changes in agricultural production by governorate (‘mid’ scenario 2080)

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Source: World Bank (2010): Yemen: Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on the Water and Agricultural Sectors and the Policy Implications. http://ynccf.net/pdf/Climate_change_and_development/Yemen_Climate_Change_Study_April_8_2010. pdf

This map shows that the agricultural production will be (in 2080) completely destabilized and mostly less productive.

So the consequences of water stress are a food shortage (the crops dry up) because of climate vulnerability, conflicts, disastrous sanitation. According to Madieh (UNICEF), the lack of water is the origin of diseases (cholera, dengue, diarrhea) sometimes deadly.

A solution to overcome this challenge is an external cooperation. The World Bank has invested in 53 water projects in Yemen for a total of $1.3 billion, for example in 2002, World Bank allocated US$150 million credit in a project for sustainable water. Germany and the Netherlands have invested also in some projects with the World Bank. UNDP has invested in projects, for example the National Programme on Integrated Water Resources Management. It brought technical assistance for water management.

A better management and political capacity with strengthen state institutions could be a key improve the water crisis. Developed alternative crop production (with less water intensive crops and more improved technologies) and desalination plants (but costly) could be potential solutions. To improve the irrigation efficiency is necessary because the traditional method is not efficient and waste water. For avoid this problem of water waste, rainfall water harvesting is another crucial technique which consists to collect water. Build dams could be also a solution to manage effectively the water. For example, a project of long term sustainability is actually developed by WFP (World Food Programme) to improve rainwater conversation and irrigation.

Ban Ki-Moon said that the link between water and poverty is strong.

“Water is a precious resource, crucial to realising the sustainable development goals, which at the heart aim to eradicate poverty”. (Ban Ki-Moon, 2016).

This quotation seems appropriate for this country because the other big problem in Yemen is the poverty.

So this paper will analyse in a second part the poverty issue.

Today, Yemen is the poorest country in Southwest Asia. It ranks 160th out of 187 countries in the UN Human Development Index (2015)

The poverty challenge appeared after the reunification (1990) of the Northern part and the Southern part of the country. According to UNDP, the poverty increased a lot in Yemen between 1992 to 2000. In 2000, 70% of households had less than a dollar per day. Several causes explained this phenomenon as for example the decline of purchase power, the inflation (rise in prices of basic products) and the very high unemployment. The war of golf in the early 1990s and the 1994 civil war also explained this poverty.

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