The conflict in Yemen has exacted a disastrous toll on the country. This paper considers the outside forces in the conflict, seeking to elucidate who they are, what the nature is of their involvement, and what their converging and conflicting interests mean for reconstruction.
View of the damaged Mercedes Benz building in Aden, Yemen, Feb. 17 (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Recommendations
A coordinated and unified GCC response to postconflict reconstruction in Yemen will be essential to meeting the country’s political and economic requirements.
Yemen’s long-term economic viability will be greatly enhanced if the GCC extends some of its membership privileges, such as tariff relief for exports from Yemen and labor concessions.
Yemen’s political culture of patronage, especially from foreign influence, is likely to persist. To reduce the tendency to play one foreign patron against another, patron-client relationships between foreign states and local governorates and armed groups must be centralized into state agencies or federal units, to bring legitimacy to government, not warlords, militias, or sectarian actors.
One effective mechanism to restore legitimacy to local governments and limit discrepancies in regional access to relief, including the disbursement of salaries, is an effort to increase transparency in the amount and distribution of aid funds by region and local governments at the municipal level.
A central tenet of any reconstruction program should be setting realistic goals. While the temptation may be to aim for major infrastructure projects like ports, airports, and free zones, small-scale projects like sanitation rehabilitation, localized solar power grids, infrastructure or public building repair, and small roads projects of the kind the World Bank is engaged in are far more likely to provide tangible benefits.
Local needs assessments should be conducted in conjunction with local communities to ensure maximum possible buy-in.
On October 21, AGSI will host a discussion on the strategic economic significance of sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East-Asia investment corridor.
Israeli and Iranian attacks on targets in Qatar are worrying developments for the small Gulf state, but they are unlikely to disrupt an expected acceleration of economic growth over the short and medium terms.
Iran’s first naval exercise since the June conflict with Israel was meant to project strength and ability to threaten the regional interests of Gulf states while avoiding military confrontation with the United States and Israel.
An apology from Israel’s prime minister – delivered under the watchful eye of President Trump in the Oval Office – and a written promise of a U.S. response if Qatar is attacked go a long way toward restoring Qatar's deterrence and bolstering its security and stability following the Israeli attack.
A shift in Saudi priorities away from normalizing ties with Israel and toward building international recognition for a Palestinian state has succeeded, as Western states pledge support among mounting outrage over famine in Gaza.
The GCC states now consider an attack on one to be an attack on all, and Saudi Arabia may be covered by a Pakistani rather than U.S. military umbrella.
President Trump's attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may or may not have irreparably damaged them, but the Al Udeid strike suggests Tehran is seeking to avoid a prolonged conflict with Washington.
On June 19, UAE-backed Yemeni forces announced that they had consolidated their control over Hodeidah airport after a week of fierce fighting with Houthi rebels for the facility as part of Operation Golden Victory, a military campaign for Hodeidah port and city.
December brought some of the biggest shifts in Yemen’s civil war since a Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015. On Dec. 4, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed by members of the Zaydi Shiite Houthi movement with whom he had been allied until just a couple of days before. His death has...
Critics worry that the Trump administration’s threat to designate the Houthis as terrorists would also undermine humanitarian efforts, while President-elect Biden is expected to return to more robust diplomacy.
As Iran contemplates its response to the killing of Major General Qassim Suleimani, it will likely look to an asymmetric response employing resources in the region, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Griffiths provided his unique insights into the U.N.-led effort to bring the principal combatants to a negotiated ceasefire and move the country toward a sustained, political solution.
AGSI explains what Israel’s sudden and massive attack on Iran is likely to mean for Gulf Arab states, Iran, the United States, and global and regional economies.
This post is part of an AGSIW series on Saudi Vision 2030, a sweeping set of programs and reforms adopted by the Saudi government to be implemented by 2030. Saudi Arabia did one thing right this week. It is seeing some positive news in the return on investment in its outwardly placed capital in new technology....
This post is part of an AGSIW series on Saudi Vision 2030, a sweeping set of programs and reforms adopted by the Saudi government to be implemented by 2030. While an Aramco initial public offering (IPO) has moved to the backburner of Saudi Arabia’s, and more importantly, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s, priorities, there have been...
