Category Archives: Development

Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on the Yemeni National Dialogue

"Arab Spring", Conferences and Talks, Development, Scholars, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION;
YEMENI COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL DIALOGUE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

The International Peace Institute (IPI) is pleased to host a roundtable discussion on the Yemeni Dialogue with Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, former Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Development Program on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, from 1:00pm–2:45pm at IPI’s Trygve Lie Center for Peace, Security & Development on the 12th floor, located at 777 United Nations Plaza.

Yemen’s transition began on November 23, 2011, when an agreement was brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) creating a two-year transitional government led by President (and former Vice-President) Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. The agreement mandates holding a National Dialogue to decide the formation of the new movement and address other pressing national issues. According to the GCC agreement, the National Dialogue conference must include “all forces and political actors, including youth, the Southern Movement, the Houthis, other political parties, civil society representatives and women.” Continue reading Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on the Yemeni National Dialogue →

Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms

"Arab Spring", Development, Egypt, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Morocco, Tunisia


Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom; source, Library of Congress

By Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, January 8th, 2013

The deeply contentious referendum on Egypt’s new constitution last December 2012 gave me some hope that not all is lost to Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the revolutions that toppled dictators in the last two years. Given the rapid Islamization of the public sphere in much of the Arab world in the last few decades, I was expecting something close to a landslide, not a small voter turnout and a modest 63.8 percent in favor of the charter. As it turns out, there are still pockets of resistance that oppose the Muslim Brothers and their agenda, even though, as the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted at that time, the divisions are not necessarily between Islamists and secular liberals. The fault lines in Egypt seem to be more varied than what is broadcast in the United States.

Be that as it may, the thing that concerns me the most is what the Western media is talking about, i.e., the clash between those who want a nation governed by divine law and those who don’t want religion to be the absolute reference in legislation. In November 2012, I had the opportunity to make the case for the separation of state and religion to people who participated or are actually participating in the drafting of constitutions in Morocco and Tunisia, a person who ran in the last presidential race in Egypt, members of the Tunisian parliament, a leader of a major Egyptian political party, and many others who are playing some role in the future of North Africa and the Middle East. I also explained why, at this crucial juncture in the region, Arabs and Muslims can’t do better than learn from the American constitutional process and especially the reasons for separating state and religion.

Fewer documents explain more powerfully the reasons for doing so than the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, first written by Thomas Jefferson in 1777–only a year after he drafted the Declaration of Independence–and enacted into law in January 1786, with the crucial help of James Madison. Jefferson was so proud of Virginia’s Religious Act that he wanted it noted on his epitaph. Continue reading Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms →

خارطة طريق لحل مشكلة المياه والقات في اليمن

Development, Qat (Catha edulis), Yemen


Qat tree in the highland valley of al-Ahjur; photograph by Daniel Martin Varisco

محمد فارع محمد الدبعي
بروفيسور الموارد المائية – جامعة صنعاء
الأحد, 25 نوفمبر, 2012

التفكير جدياً في استيراد القات من دول الجوار على مراحل حفاظاً على الإنسان في اليمن.

لماذا كل شيء يمكن استيراده في بلادنا (كل شيء) ما عدا القات؟؟

منع استخدام المبيدات في زراعة القات لما تشكله من أضرار على صحة المواطنين

توطين تكنولوجيا تحلية المياه في المناطق الساحلية باعتبارها الحل الذي لا بديل عنه لمجابهة الحاجة المتزايدة لهذا المورد على الدوام.

العمل على أن تكون عبوة قنينة الماء المعبأة نصف لتر فقط، حفاظاً على كثير من الماء المهدور.

استيراد القات الخالي من المبيدات أصبح ضرورة للحد من الاستنزاف الحاد للمياه الجوفية والعبث بالمواطن اليمني صحياً ومادياً

المشكلة في غاية الأهمية والخطورة بالنسبة لنا ولأجيالنا القادمة وعلى الجهات المسئولة إيجاد الحلول والمعالجات بدلاً من عقد المؤتمرات والندوات وورش العمل المغلقة التي تستهلك معونات وهبات المنظمات الدولية ويستفيد منها منظموها فقط وبدون مردود على الصعيد الوطني. إن ما يتم القيام به لحل مشكلة المياه والحد من التوسع في زراعة القات لا يلامس حل المشكلة ولا يعطي الاطمئنان لتنمية مستدامة تبشر بمستقبل واعد.

لليمن تاريخ طويل في إدارة الموارد المائية والحفاظ عليها. وما بناء سد مأرب التاريخي قبل ثلاثة ألف سنة، وصهاريج عدن التاريخية، وكذلك بناء السدود الصغيرة في المنحدرات الجبلية، إلا شاهداً على ذلك، لقد اختفى الكثير من هذه السدود الصغيرة وأصبحت في ذمة التاريخ، وما تبقى منها لا يعمل، لقد عملت هذه السدود على حفظ الماء من أجل الري الزراعي والشرب والاستخدامات المنزلية المختلفة، وساعدت في تغذية الخزان الجوفي.
Continue reading خارطة طريق لحل مشكلة المياه والقات في اليمن →

Yemen Conference at Harvard

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Development, Environment, Gender and Sexuality, Terrorism Issue, Yemen, Zaydi


This past Friday and Saturday a conference was held on “Yemen in Transition.” While I was originally scheduled to give a presentation, I was not able to attend. But here is an overview of the conference, with complete details on the conference website.

Date: October 19, 2012 (All day) – October 20, 2012 (All day)
Speaker: various
Yemen in Transition: Challenges and Opportunities
Organized by Steven C. Caton, Harvard University, and the Yemen Working Group, this conference brings together Yemeni American professionals and academics along with some of their counterparts from Yemen, and academics from the U.S., Europe, and Yemen to discuss the future of Yemen and what might be done to help the country as it transitions into its new historical phase. It also brings together students from Harvard and the Boston area who are from Yemen. The main topics to be discussed are: women and youth, economic development, politics and political reform, and the water crisis. As an academic conference, the focus will be on theory and analysis, though concrete proposals and recommendations will also be presented.

The panels and the keynote address are open to the public. These presentations will be videotaped and made available on the website of the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies but they will not be published as part of a conference proceedings. The use of recording devices by anyone other than the organizers is strictly prohibited.

Yes, Yemen has bananas

Development, Food and Drink, Yemen


One of the great novelty Vaudeville songs of the early 20th century was “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” a number one hit for the singer Eddie Cantor in 1923. I have the Edison 1923 recording sung by Billy Jones, Arthur Hall and Irving Kaufman, which is also on Youtube. The song made fun of Italian accents, like the one my Sicilian Grandfather no doubt had as a boy. But it seems that in this case, almost a century later, unlike the Little Italy vendor in the song, Yemen does have bananas and very good ones at that.

Here is the report from Yemen’s Saba News Agency:

Yemen comes first among 45 countries exporting bananas

SANA’A, July 24 (Saba)- Yemen has came the first among 45 countries exporting bananas at the Regional Roundtable for exporters of banana products, held in Geneva during the period (July 20-21).

Yemen has sent varieties of bananas from some farms in the Yemeni provinces famous for the production of bananas, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is the mediator for this product in the Regional Roundtable for exporters of bananas, Official of the agricultural export activities at the Small and Micro Enterprises supported by the Social Fund for Development, engineer Samar Abdullah, told Saba.

Samar said that this win motivates the banana growers in Yemen to compete in the improvement of banana production and its cultivation as it has health benefits, and enables Yemen to enter into the global markets of bananas exporters.

Revolution of the Thirsty

"Arab Spring", Architecture, Development, Egypt, Environment


Top: Promotional image for Allegria, a gated community in Sheikh Zayed City, a suburb of Cairo, Egypt. [Image by SODIC] Bottom: Neighborhood in Cairo. [Photo by Brandon Atkinson]

by Karen Piper, The Design Observer Group, July 12, 2012

“Welcome to the Greener Side of Life” beckoned the billboard on Cairo’s Ring Road, which showed a man in a jaunty hat teeing off on a verdant golf course flowing into the horizon. I was stuck in traffic, breathing that mix of Saharan dust and pollution also known as “air,” so I could see the appeal. Somewhere outside the city, in a gated community called Allegria — Italian for “cheerfulness” — a greener life awaited. “Over 80% of Allegria’s land is dedicated to green and public spaces,” boasts the developer’s brochure, “meaning you’ll never lose the peace and tranquility which goes hand in hand with outdoor living.”

It was a scorching hot summer, several months before the Egyptian revolution. Beneath the expressway sprawled the informal settlements where an estimated 60 percent of metropolitan Cairo’s 18 million residents live. [1] Some were using billboard poles to keep the brick structures from collapsing. Many did not have running water, and those who did found the taps drying up as water was diverted to the lavishly landscaped suburban developments with names like Allegria, Dreamland, Beverly Hills, Swan Lake, Utopia — a diversion that was straining the capacity of state-run water distribution networks and waste treatment plants. [2] Continue reading Revolution of the Thirsty →

In whose interests?

Development, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Yemeni children in the Tihama coastal zone; photography by Daniel Martin varisco

The struggle for security and against terrorism in Yemen: in whose interests?

by Helen Lackner, Open Democracy, 20 July 2012

When Yemen features in the news, it is usually due to the supposed activities in Yemen or outside of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP], the group said to be a follower of Osama Bin Laden’s similarly named organisation. The most prominent such events have been the 2010 ‘underpants bomber’ who was trained in Yemen, the 2011 ‘cartridge’ bombs which were sent from Yemen and – most important for Yemenis – the occupation of a Southern Governorate [Abyan] by AQAP and its associate Ansar al Shari’a between May 2011 and June 2012, when they were ousted.
AQAP and Ansar al Shari’a[1]

While the first two of these events are of limited interest to the average Yemeni, the presence of AQAP is one of the many security issues which Yemenis have to face on a daily basis. Although AQAP had been present and active in many remote parts of the country [Shabwa, Mareb and Abyan Governorates] since the beginning of the century, this presence only became a direct serious threat to the population in the last year when they occupied all the major towns of Abyan as well as some in Shabwa. Although earlier their presence had made it difficult for development and aid agencies to operate, these occupations led to mass displacement of over 200,000 people who have taken refuge either with relatives in neighbouring governorates [eg al Baidha] or moved to Aden where they settled in schools and other facilities and became Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] recognised as such by UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies. These groups were successfully ousted from their positions between May and mid-June 2012 after holding the area for a year.
Continue reading In whose interests? →