Yemen Today: The Path to Reform

The Path to Reform
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David MacDonald on 07/03/2010 05:36:00
 
Almost every news story about Yemen ends with a familiar listing of the various
challenges, or “crises,” facing the country. Of those who follow such news
regularly, many simply stop reading when the usual litany is presented: civil
war, terrorism, secessionism, water crisis, an exploding population, etc. Recent
events, from Saudi Arabia’s entanglement in the Houthi rebellion in November
of last year, to the failed bombing attempt on an American airliner by a
Nigerian trained in Yemen, have served to sharpen international attention on
Yemen’s internal issues. A report from an American think tank summarized the
worst fears of many, stating that these interconnected problems “have the
potential to overwhelm the Yemeni government, jeopardizing domestic stability
and security across the region.” At the center of these discussions is the
viability of the Yemeni government in the midst of a sea of crises.
Attempting to bring light into this void is a team of young reformers, who have
developed an ambitious ten-point plan of reform. It has been in the works since
2008, but in the last six months, the Ten Point Plan has gained considerable
momentum, and now enjoys support from the highest levels of government. The
group behind the plan, including Deputy Minister of Finance Jalal Yaqoub
(pictured above), among many others, have been part of past reform efforts, and
are uniquely positioned to answer difficult questions: What reforms are
possible? What reforms should we prioritize? What steps need to be taken to
achieve them? What are the likely obstacles?
The plan starts with the belief that the core of Yemen’s problems are economic
in nature, and dealing with the economy requires focusing on three areas: job
opportunities, provision of services, and rule of law. All of the ten points are
related to one of these three pillars.
Evolution of a plan
The plan began with frank discussions among a group of young reformers in 2008.
In June of that year, Jalal Yaqoub penned an article for Yemen Today, presenting
the Ten Points (or Ten Priorities, as they have also been referred to) in an
abbreviated form. But it did not take off until the summer of 2009. The plan was
revised and presented to Prime Minister Mujawwar in a PowerPoint presentation in
July; a month later President Saleh gave his official imprimatur, and the wheels
of government started moving to make the plan a reality. An executive office was
formed, comprising the relevant ministers. Beneath the executive office is a
technical committee, of which Jalal is a member, tasked with working out the
fine print. International consultants have been hired to assist with this step,
after which the plan will be officially announced. This is expected to happen in
the spring. In the meantime, the Ten Points have been referred to favorably by
Barack Obama (in a letter to President Saleh in the fall), and US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband at the London
Conference back in January. Yemen Today sat down with Jalal to discuss the plan
in greater detail.
The Priorities
“Why do we need priorities?” Jalal asks rhetorically, right off the bat.
“Yemen faces many challenges; you name it, we have it right now. And we design
strategies and plans to deal with these issues; however, we really don’t have
enough time, financial resources, or human capacity to address all the
challenges at the same time…Therefore, we’re saying that the government must
prioritize, and must create success stories for the citizens to see, in the next
twenty-four months.”
After looking at the broad range of issues the ten points aim to tackle, from
government employment to water, from oil to land, the two-year timeline for the
Ten Points seemed quite short. But Jalal made it clear that the idea of a
relatively short time frame was to establish, and achieve, clear goals and
benchmarks. “We need to create success stories,” he said, and to
re-establish the government’s credibility by making visible progress. The
fifth priority, for example, is land reform. Clashes over land are responsible
for violence and clogging the courts with intractable case-loads. To solve all
the country’s land disputes within two years is not realistic. What the plan
hopes to accomplish, however, is to take a few neighborhoods, and register all
of the land in those areas, settling disputes once and for all. Such a success
story, achievable in two years, would set an example for the rest of the country
to follow.
While an issue like land reform enjoys broad consensus, that is not the case for
all of the points. The most controversial of the points is a plan to attract one
hundred highly qualified Yemenis into the government. Most of them would likely
be Yemenis born and/or educated abroad. Jalal doesn’t pull any punches; he
believes the low capacity of government employees is one of the greatest
challenges facing the government. Senior level officials, whose jobs may be in
jeopardy, are not pleased at the prospect of losing their jobs. Nevertheless,
Jalal is insistent: “If there is one priority that is the most important, the
one that would make the most change, it would be this one. Because we believe
that the core of most of our problems stems from not being able to deliver the
services needed to be a success. And why are we not able to deliver these
services? Because we cannot plan properly, because we don’t have the right
people.”
Many of the points are interconnected, as Jalal readily acknowledges. Priority
nine, for example, calls for urgent solutions to the water crisis. Laws to deal
with the crisis are in place, it’s just a matter of enforcing those laws;
enforcing the rule of law is itself a point (number eight). The government’s
inability to uniformly enforce the law also feeds the aforementioned land
issues, which themselves negatively impact the investment environment, the
improvement of which is a key to the first and seventh points (Top 100, and
Action Plan for Aden, respectively), and so it goes.
One notable absence from the list is corruption, an issue which many Yemenis
feel to be at the heart of the country’s problems. “I see dealing with
corruption just like you do with terrorism,” Jalal responded. “You have to
deal with it in two parallel approaches. One, with extremism, you have to have
security measures…But you also have to have development on the ground, with
job opportunities and  services, like water, electricity, roads, education, and
health…This parallels with corruption. You can always just keep putting people
in jail, but this doesn’t deal with the root of the problem. You have to fix
the system. I see corruption as a symptom, and [the ten points] are the
ingredients that you use to fix the underlying problem.” Education and health
care are also not in the plan for the same reason: they are just symptoms of
more fundamental problems, which the Ten Point Plan hopes to tackle directly.
While the plan is meant to demonstrate that Yemen can help itself, Jalal
doesn’t deny that concerted assistance from the international community will
be needed to help the country fend off multiple crises. And the donors
themselves are hoping that the government will not only step up to the plate,
but will hit a home run as well. The Ten Points could not be more relevant in
this regard, given increasing reports (all unofficial so far) that Yemen might
enter into an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Such
agreements usually call for a government to reduce subsidies by raising prices,
while also making cuts to the civil service. The end goal is improving the
government’s fiscal health by cutting expenditures, but higher prices and
unemployment would be the likely results. The Ten Points, particularly the first
three, deal with the same issues, but in a more deliberate, holistic fashion.
Rather than immediate cuts to subsidies and the civil service across the board,
the plan calls for a measured process, through which greater employment
opportunities and improved services would first be provided, softening the blow
to the population of eventual price raises and cuts to the civil service.
Government Credibility
A final criticism of the plan is that it fails to deal with what many observers
feel to be the central problem of the Yemeni government: over-centralization of
authority. Yet those behind the plan are not revolutionaries; they are clearly
trying to effect change from within the system. Point six calls for the
engagement of the President’s Office (and by extension, his ruling party, the
General People’s Congress). The goal of the Ten Points is to re-establish the
government’s credibility with Yemeni citizens and the international community,
investors and donors alike.
Although the government is criticized from many quarters for corruption, lack of
transparency, and a less-than perfect human rights record, there are no
realistic policy recommendations which suggest circumventing the central
government. Whatever its faults, there is no other institution in Yemen with the
potential to bring about the sweeping change necessary.
Public discontent with the government grows as the government’s credibility
and ability to provide services decrease. By all accounts, such discontent is
feeding the Southern Movement and tacit tribal support for al-Qaeda. The Ten
Point Plan is the government’s best chance in a long time to regain the
public’s trust. A dedicated team of public servants is working to give the
people reason to hope.