United State Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion in Yemen 2011-2014

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of International Development and Gender

Gender-Development Research & Studies Center (GDRSC)

Sanaa University

By

Ashwaq Abdulsalam Shuja’a Addin

Under the supervision of professors:

Adnan Yassin Al-Maktary, Head of Political Science Department, Vice Dean for Community Affairs,

Faculty of Commerce and Economic

Sanaa University

2020

ABSTRACT

The research argues the role of USA policy in promoting democracy in Yemen after the Arab Spring uprisings 2011-2014. This topic couldn’t be tackled without taking into consideration the appearance of the MB as a significant variable power effect and affected by the USA policy agenda during the transition period 2011-2014. The study investigates the justifications behind suspending the democracy promotion agenda and the preoccupation of the MB file on America’s priorities agenda. It also explores the underlined reasons beyond the failure of the transition period and the collapse of the MB (Islah party) in Yemen.

The paper studies the mechanism of USA policy formation and the role of think-tank in forming the attitudes of the USA administrations and decision-makers toward Islam which has been reflected in their policies and strategies in the middle east after the Arab Spring Uprising. All these policies have its implications on the democracy agenda, especially after the presence of the MB in the forefront in the post-Arab spring period…and how they cast their dimensions on the MB in Egypt as well as in Yemen.  Therefore, It is more comprehensive and logical to tackle the topic of Yemen as a part of the middle east context and referring to the revolutions which have taken place in the region especially the collapse of the MB in Egypt as the spiritual father for the other MB entities in Yemen.

The nature of the research issue imposed the researcher to study many interlinked factors and actors interacting with each other and laid their shadow on the Yemeni context. These elements are the U.S.A foreign policy, democracy promotion, Arab spring, and the MB in addition to the domestic and regional actor’s role. The researcher studied these elements in the light of the Real New Classical Theory (defensive and offensive) which helped in understanding the internal mechanism of the USA policy decision making as well as studying the motivation behind the US behaviors toward the political Islam and democracy agenda. The study indicates also theses of many of the prominent scholars in USA policy affairs which influences USA decision making. The researcher used the Role Analysis Methodology which applied mostly in the field the international relation interaction analysis. This Methodology helped in studying the role of each component, entity, a country at the domestic, regional, and international levels.

The paper comes to that result; the  USA policy agenda in the middle east is a comprehensive framework, it may be different in some of the details responding to geopolitical and geographical variables for each country but there is a common core point amplify the main USA classical goals in the middle east. The USA administration favored the interests on principles and never allows any power entity grows in the middle east, regardless to its background or the consequences, the pseudo-democracy promotion agenda in the middle east was only a tool used for creating more divisions in the political and social life of the Yemeni community since the democracy wasn’t come out from the root of the community, and wasn’t accompanied with the institutional social and ideological alteration. Therefore, the democracy agenda was pseudo and fragile, and its outcomes appeared in 2011 and beyond. Finally, the agenda of the USA couldn’t able to pass to Yemen without the regional actors’ role and nothing could be achieved without the domestic tools. The research concluded The Uprising of Arab spring which was supposed to a safe life gate toward democracy alteration, it rather becomes a historical opportunity for the USA to inaugurate its new phase of segmentation and chaos in the middle east and Yemen where the project aspects started to appear obviously in the ground.

THE EFFECT OF MONITORING AND EVALUATION PRACTICES ON DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS’ PERFORMANCE IN YEMEN AND ITS RELATION TO GENDER

“Case Study on The Yemen Social Fund for Development (SFD)”

Lubna Hassan Abdulrahman Jahaf

2020

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the effect of monitoring and evaluation practices on the performance of the development projects in Yemen and its relation to gender. It identifies the extent to which monitoring and evaluation practices in the form of (financial resources, staff training, monitoring skills, technical activities, information system, reports and gender) affect the performance of the development projects. It also explores the mediating effect of the management support towards M&E and the performance of the development projects shedding the light on gender. This has been applied following a conceptual framework, in addition to the Result Based Management theory. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher employed descriptive research design in which mixed method approach was used. Qualitative data was gathered through interviews that were conducted with nine Key Informants (KI) from program staff at SFD. Results from the interviews helped further in developing the survey instrument. The sample of the study was 136 from the program staff (project and M&E), Data was collected through close-ended questionnaire and analysed using SPSS (version 25). The data was analysed using Correlation, regression and hierarchical regression. The findings of the study showed that staff with monitoring skills in SFD , who are practicing M&E technical activities, generating M&E reports in timely manner , getting support from management and considering gender in their activities will significantly affect the performance of the development projects. Also, the findings from the hierarchical regression showed that, there is a mediating effect by the management support between gender and the project performance, indicating that the management of SFD is gender sensitive. This study is one of the first studies which has focused on gender relations in the field of M&E.

ABSTRACT

The present study examines the localization of the humanitarian response plans in Yemen during the years 2016 – 2017. It aims at exploring and analyzing the localization and its level of adoption by the internal and external humanitarian actors in Yemen. The methodological approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on quantitative and qualitative research design where a questionnaire was utilized to gather quantitative data and semi-structured interviews were used to collect additional insights from the targeted interviewees. Sources of the primary data of the present study are the questionnaires and the semi–structured in-depth interviews with representative individuals working for local and international humanitarian organizations operating in Yemen. Sources of the secondary data are the reports, plans, articles, audios, and videos released by the humanitarian actors in Yemen and other similar countries about the process of localization. Both UN Agencies and INGOs are considered as external actors whereas, Government Entities, LNGOs, and Private Sectors are considered as local actors.

The present study covered the entire Republic of Yemen in the period from 2016 to 2017. The major findings revealed by this study include the fact that the external actors exclusively control the process of designing the HRP and take charge in the implementation phase. Due to such rigid control exercised by the external actors, a full-fledged localization of the YHRP is still far from being achieved. If at all there exists such localization, it is still weak and primitive. Further, Internal actors’ level of knowledge about HRP and their level of engagement in its design process continues to be unequal with the level of knowledge and level of engagement of external actors and imbalance of these levels prevented the application of localization. Last but not least, the present
study identified three main challenges preventing the proper and effective adoption and implementation of localization of HRP in Yemen: viz. imbalance in power between internal and external actors, fragility and instability of the Yemeni context, and the weak capacity of internal actors compared with the external ones.
The present study calls for further collaboration and integration for internal actors in all the phases of HRP: planning, design, implementation and evaluation. More collaboration is needed between the local actors in Yemen, especially the private sector and the local non-government organization.

The potentials of the private sector are of immense proportions to localization and humanitarian response in Yemen, yet such potentials are not utilized to the fullest. All actors should be viewed as partners who strive to achieve one shared goal: the localization of HRP in Yemen. Keywords: Localization, Humanitarian Response Plan, Humanitarian Actors partnership, development

POLITICAL ELITE AND CONFLICT ON OIL WEALTH IN YEMEN

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in International Development and Gender

By: EJLAL YAHYA ALI ABDULLAH SHOJA’A ADDIN

Supervision

Dr. Adnan Yassin Al-Maktary

Head of Department of Political Science

Vice Dean for the Community Services Affairs

Faculty of Commerce & Economics, Sana’a University

July 2020

Thesis Brief

 This thesis is set out to address one of the most complicated economic and politically interconnected issue in Yemen. It studied the effect of Yemen political elite on the distribution of the oil wealth. It was crucial to study this since there were few Yemeni academic researchers who tackled one of the research components (either elites or distribution of oil wealth) and none has compounded the political and economic aspects of elites and the distribution of oil wealth in one study.

At the end of the 20^th century, Yemen economy has switched from remittances and agriculturally based economy to a minor producer of oil resources. This oil boom has created lots of changes in the political economy domain and Yemen was transferred to be a rentier state. Yemen started as a small producer of oil in 1986. This production was increased in higher amounts until it reached a good portion of commercial oil in the beginning of the 20^th century. Oil was extracted from blocks in various northern and southern geographical areas. Dreams were enormously built on this resource boom to shift the country into a perceived economic development and welfare and indeed this sector greatly supported the government budget and the economy.  However, hopes of ordinary people were soon evaporated in the presence of authoritarian regime that tactfully used this wealth to secure its survival through distributing the oil rents on an intertwined network of elites and thus oil discovery in Yemen was applied to the discourse of resource curse rather than blessings.

Since then Yemen’s economy was highly interlinked to politics and it ran through a critical juncture. In the petro-business field, the elites were either holding direct political positions in the state or have powerful arms in politics through their relative officials who ensured and facilitated the gains from this business. For this reason, and although the elites’ group is from different backgrounds including; tribal, commercial, religious, military, Technocrats, they are referred to here as political elites.

The following are the research results:

• The core elites in Yemen’s political economy have been presented in this research. They are called the inner circle. Most of them are president Saleh’s relatives who are declined to his tribe, Sanhan and the prominent tribal, military and political figures. There are also the outer circle allies, but those are less influential than the inner circle and have little power.
• All elites were established, empowered and dominated at the time of Saleh on the bases of mutual interest between them and the ex-regime and the rule of the game in the patronage system. The elites’ group was empowered and given inclusion to various economic gains, while there was exclusion to the middle and lower classes in the society. Favored actors are allowed access to main sectors of the economy. The degree of access they are given has often been directly proportional to the importance president Saleh has placed on their political support.
• Within these networks, there was a running competition on both political positions and economic interests. That is because the rule of the game was based on paying a certain degree of loyalty and support to the regime and getting the prize of acquiring the larger share of benefits. Thus, elites have monopolized the wealth of Yemen and spread corrupt practices in the oil sector.
• The patronage system is characterized by the inclusion and exclusion as key relations. Elites were being circulated into the system and the power around the president. When elites were financially dependent on the regime, they make a deep thinking and fear of losing their privileged positions if the regime changes. When accepting to join the patronage game, elites will be called corrupt if they think of taking a different path than the whole system is adopting, so reform for the political economy has been abandoned. Saleh was playing the game of patronage in a genius manner attracting allies within the most powerful tribal families and distributing privileges on the different family members in political and military positions, private sector … etc. This way of distribution ensured that in the same family there are different points of dependency on the existing system. This enabled Saleh in times of crises or disobedience to use pressure on one of the family members and threatening other relatives. Applying the divide and rule tactics was generally used by Saleh on the different segments of elites.
• The oil boom has led to conflicts, between the elites themselves and between the elite and ordinary people, and between the south and the north as well, as a result of the unequal distribution of rents. The neo-patrimonial system of Saleh has witnessed a circulation process among elites and continuous bargaining for better patronage positions. There was a constant competition between elites on who gets more benefits which made it complicated for any development to happen. Tensions were commonly found among the elites’ group. The conflict happened from inequalities in relations, including power and economic relations.
• In the last era of Saleh, the oil sector has witnessed instability and deterioration in production and many attacks that didn’t allow the steady flow of oil revenues. This scarcity of oil resources has become very obvious. On the other hand, more circulation of elites was taking place. Where some elites were excluded or at least restricted from getting larger shares of wealth and some others were included in the neo-patrimonial system.
• Adopting this governing strategy of neo-patrimonialism in the distribution of oil wealth has led to a number of implications including political conflicts. Early in 2011, a group of youth have arranged for protests against the regime releasing number of reforming demands and soon some prominent elites have joined in making this political turmoil marking the start of the Yemen elites defection from Saleh regime. Moreover, the few benefits given to the southern people and the limited and symbolic inclusion for them in the elite network while a large portion of the oil is being produced from the southern lands have raised the southern movement. More conflicts were also evoked such as the violence in Sada governorate adding to that the prominence of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

AN EXAMINATION OF WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND HUMANITARIAN PARTICIPATION DURING WARTIME: THE CASE OF YEMEN 2015-2018

ALI ABDULLAH AHMED ALJAHLAPY

A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of International Development and Gender

Main Supervisor

Prof. Kamel Al-Rashahi

Abstract:

The study examined the women’s empowerment and humanitarian participation. It studied a range of related and relevant issues. It pointed out that the participation of women in humanitarian work with its four the axes (health initiatives, relief projects, educational programs and Social cohesion) considering them to be the most important issues carried out by women in Yemeni society and through which they participate in humanitarian work. This study is based on a series of main and sub- questions that show the extent of their participation according to these axes. The study also assumes that there is a relationship between women’s participation in humanitarian work and their empowerment in society. A quantitative, qualitative methodology was used. Questionnaires distributed to a sample of 375 individuals and in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 of Yemeni women leaders. The study revealed that there is an increase in the participation of women in humanitarian work in its four axes according to the demographics criterion. This participation greatly helps to empower women to be either pioneers of change if they are uninvolved with the political regime, or as decision makers in case They are involved with political regime. According to UNSC resolution 1325, the study found that the Yemeni society has the eligibility to apply it since the study found that the society is primarily accepting women’s participation in peace and humanitarian issues. The study set out a set of recommendations that were supposed to enhance the participation of women in humanitarian work and to ensure their empowerment, and pointed out that the implementation of resolution 1325 required government authorities to work out a national plan for its implementation.

IMPACT OF CONFLICT IN YEMEN ON SOCIAL PERFORMANCE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN THE CAPITAL SECRETARIAT

OSAMA Lutf AL-ANSI

2020

ABSTRACT

The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the impact of 2015 contemporary conflict in Yemen on social performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Yemen. It covered the period from 2014 to 2018 and the geographical area for the study was the capital secretariat of Yemen, Sanaa. The descriptive-analytical study adopted mixed research approach and was conducted on 100 staff members of targeted MFIs through intentional sampling. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire while secondary data were gathered from books, Microfinance Institutions Websites, annual reports, Social Fund for Development (SFD) annual reports, Yemen Microfinance Network (YMN), etc. Collected data sets were analyzed by SPSS-24 software.

The findings indicated that there was a negative impact of conflict in Yemen on MFI’s social performance in the capital secretariat. This negative impact varied on the following dimensions of MFI’s social performance: Social Mission, Outreach, Clients, Information Transparency and Consumer Protection, Association with the Community, and Labor. The most dimension affected by the conflict was the Social Mission dimension, followed by the Labor and the Association with the Community Dimensions. Meanwhile, the Clients and the Information Transparency & Consumer Protection dimensions were the least affected dimensions by the conflict.

Moreover, the study findings showed there were evidences of understanding and commitment to institutional mission presented at all levels of staff of the MFI’s work, ideals of transparency and consumer protection are govern the actions of MFIs, MFIs fairly maintain positive relations and strive to improve communities, and finally, Microfinance institutions strive to develop their human resources and maintain active communication with staff. However, the study revealed the fact that both of Women and Poor of the Poorest segments were not given preference when applying for microfinance services which goes against the core objectives of microfinance.

Keywords:

Microfinance, Social Performance, Conflict.__