In breve

Capitale	Sanaa
Governo	Repubblica
Valuta	Rial dello Yemen (YER)
Superficie	527,970 km2
Abitanti	18,701,257 (stima del luglio 2002)
Lingua ufficiale	Arabo
Religione	Musulmana Shaf'i (Sunnita) e (Sciti), ridotte comunità ebraiche, cristiane e Indù
Elettricità	220/50Hz
Presa	Spina tipo Britannico (UK)
Prefisso	+967
Internet TLD	.ye
Sito web	Sito ufficiale dell'Ente statale di promozione turistica]

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Immagine:Bab-el-Yemen Sana 1980

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Sheep farmers witness significant increases in animals

Photo: YASP

Mohamed Ahmed Alawili (left) and a local USAID-funded agricultural support program's extension agent proudly display a quadruplet of healthy lambs.

Yemeni farmers learn new techniques to increase the health and productivity of their sheep.

In the five months that Mohamed Ahmed Alawili and Hassan Al-Mogahed have been working with livestock extension agents from a USAID agricultural support program in Yemen�s Amran governorate, they have witnessed firsthand the benefits USAID is providing to farmers in the country.
The program is a USAID-funded initiative to enhance agricultural production and rural economic development in Yemen. By using the concentrated feed, mineral blocks, vaccinations and training the program provided, Mohamed and Hassan have seen the health and productivity of their sheep increase dramatically.
Of Hassan�s 20 pregnant sheep that were fed concentrated feed, given mineral blocks, and treated for parasites, ten delivered triplets with each lamb weighing 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds), while another four sheep delivered twins with each weighing 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds). Normally, Hassan�s sheep deliver one lamb each, weighing on average 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds)
Mohamed�s sheep have experienced similar improvements. Of his 14 sheep, four delivered twins with each lamb weighing 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds), while a fifth sheep delivered quadruplets with each lamb weighing 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds). Mohamed�s sheep, like Hassan�s, normally deliver one lamb each, weighing on average 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).
Both farmers plan on investing in concentrated feed and mineral blocks for their newborn sheep, which should allow them to bring a higher price when they sell them in the market.

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Tap water flows in dry and remote

As soon as he was strong enough to ride a donkey and carry buckets, little Mahmood went to the well to collect water for his family of seven - a six-kilometre round trip. “Sometimes I had no time or was simply too tired to go to school,” he said, with the look of a child who has grown up too quickly.

Mahmood fetches water from a tap for the first time ever. ECHO has funded a collective fountain at the heart of Al-Thawbani village, situated on Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
Photo : EC/ECHO/Sébastien Carliez

Today, eight year old Mahmood can fetch water from a tap for the first time ever. With support from ECHO, the aid agency Dia has just installed a 12-kilometre water pipe network connecting a newly-dug well to Mahmood’s village, as well as to eight other settlements located in the heart of the Tihama strip. “It is much quicker this way,” he explains with a large smile, filling up two plastic containers with fresh drinking water. A collective fountain has just been set up at the most central place in Al-Thawbani, a village composed of several straw huts and small concrete houses.
The Tihama is a dry region lying along the Red Sea coast of Yemen, one of the least developed countries on earth. The average rainfall here is somewhere between 20 and 50 millimetres per year. Vegetation is scarce, with only thorny shrubs resisting the harsh desert conditions. Uncertain livelihoods and malaria - endemic in the Tihama, make living conditions difficult for local people.
But Dia’s project has made a big difference to the lives of Mahmood and the other 3,000 or so members of the Al-Thawbani community. Before, people used to draw salty and sometimes contaminated water from an old, uncovered, 15-metre well, using ropes and buckets. Now, water is mechanically pumped from more than 60 metres underground and is channeled, through pipes, to fountains located in each settlement in the area. Thus, water is always safe for drinking.
Meanwhile, training sessions were organised to raise people’s awareness about water hygiene, with a view to changing unsafe habits. Dozens of women in Al-Thawbani were taught why, and how, to boil water before drinking it - and were warned against the use of stagnant water which can help to spread malaria. They also learned that dirty water promotes other diseases like diarrhea, hepatitis and typhoid.
Yemeni women give birth to an average of six children. In rural, remote areas such as Al-Thawbani, girls often get married at the age of twelve, and many girls do not reach secondary school. It was the first time that these women had ever been offered such a training opportunity.
It was equally important to target children directly since they are often involved in water collection and management at home. Two-hour sessions on basic hygiene were organised for 345 pupils in primary schools. A puppet show was created for the occasion and performed for the children of Al-Thawbani, with a few, simple but practical, key messages: one must wash hands before cooking and after going to the bathroom, take a shower more than once a week, etc.
A local association, the first one of its kind in Al-Thawbani, was created to ensure the long-term sustainability of the water supply network. Five out of the ten representatives elected by local people to serve on the body, work full time for the project. They include technicians in charge of maintaining the pump and the pipe network, and a fee collector. The service costs just 500 Yemeni Ryals (€2) per family per month.
“We now hope that water supply will no longer prevent the development of the local community”, concludes Dia’s representative in Yemen, Jérôme Conilleau.
Further east, in the hilly district of Al-Wazeeyah, ECHO has funded a similar water network serving 19 remote villages. Overall, 7,000 people are now receiving clean drinking water every day. With Yemen’s rapidly expanding population, this figure will reach 12,000 in 15 years time.

Sébastien Carliez
ECHO Regional Information Officer - Amman

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Yemen: Reform or bust

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Its 22 million-strong population is set to double by 2035 at the current rate of growth, but it’s fast running out of water – and oil. Yemen’s state structures are weak and incomplete, and the country faces substantial development challenges.
I reported from Yemen for a year – from 2006 to 2007 – and now I’m back to see whether recent reforms are diffusing social, political and economic pressures in this fragile state.

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Yemen: Peace breaks out in Saada

President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s July declaration that the four-year, stop-go guerrilla war in the northern province of Saada was “over” took everyone in Yemen by surprise.
Now, rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has agreed to come down from the mountain.
In a letter publicised by Yemen’s state-run media today, al-Houthi accepted Saleh’s peace terms. The rebels will surrender their strategic mountaintop positions and hand over their heavy and medium weapons to the authorities.
The road from Sana’a to Saada opened a few weeks ago, and NGOs have sent teams to assess, feed and treat an estimated 100,000 internally displaced people. But the International Committee of the Red Cross is warning that aid workers are struggling to operate outside the provincial capital, Saada city.
Journalists have been barred from Saada throughout the conflict.

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Yemen divided on vice and virtue

By Ginny Hill
BBC News, Sanaa
A hairdryer whirrs. Teenage girls reach for sequins, glitter and hairpins. It's the weekend in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and seven sisters are dressing for a wedding.
The eldest, Ashwaq, 21, a university graduate, wants to be a journalist.
Asked what she thinks about Yemen's new self-appointed morality authority, she looks up from styling her sister's hair. 

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Yemen: Family values

A while ago, when I first came to Yemen, there was a TV adv run by a cell phone manufacturer on the Arab satellite channels. It started with a close-up shot of an Arab woman’s face. She seemed to be writhing with pleasure, but the camera pulled back to show her wriggling into a pair of skin-tight jeans. The new slim-line handset was thin enough to fit into the tightest pocket – that was the message.

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