Helen Lacner: Yemen's economy needs generations to recover
English - Sunday 29 December 2019 الساعة 03:14 pm
aden,newsyemen
Helen Lackner said that despite Yemen's strategic location that runs between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, two major shipping lanes, the majority of its 30 million people live in extreme poverty, while its economy has been decimated by the conflict.
Helen Lackner, author of "Yemen in a Crisis," noted that Yemen has tremendous potential, but the effects of the war will require generations to recover, noting that 70 percent of Yemenis live in rural areas, and that 80 percent of all Yemenis are poor.
Lackner said, "Yemen faces an acute shortage of water and within a generation, many people will not be able to live there."
A recent study, "The Impact of War on Development in Yemen", has confirmed that the long-term effects of the conflict are vast and place it among the most destructive since the end of the Cold War, and the further deterioration of the situation, greatly deepening long-term human suffering, delaying human development, and could further deteriorate regional stability.
The war, which entered its fifth year, caused the division of public financial management and the deterioration of public spending, as the public budget stopped funding investment programs, cash transfers for poor cases registered in the Social Welfare Fund since the beginning of 2015, and the wages and salaries of a large part of the state employees for more than 3 years.
Operating expenses for basic social services in education, health, water and electricity were disrupted in many regions of the country, leaving the population dependent on limited and unsustainable external aid.
A large percentage of the population was deprived of their main source of income, which undermined their purchasing power for food and non-food goods and services, also negatively affected the overall demand in the economy, and contributed to increasing unemployment, exacerbating food insecurity and malnutrition, and deepening the poverty gap, as it became 80% of Yemenis need some form of humanitarian aid and protection.
