{"id":344074,"date":"2016-11-29T10:41:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T15:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brookings.alley.test\/?p=344074"},"modified":"2022-09-08T08:10:26","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T08:10:26","slug":"yemen-ceasefires-and-lost-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/yemen-ceasefires-and-lost-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemen: Ceasefires and lost opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mid-November announcement\u00a0of yet another\u00a0ceasefire in Yemen\u00a0should\u00a0have\u00a0been\u00a0good news. Ostensibly, the\u00a0short\u00a0break in fighting between a\u00a0Saudi-led\u00a0coalition<\/a>\u00a0of pro-Yemeni forces against\u00a0Houthi\u00a0rebels was for humanitarian reasons.\u00a0But the ceasefire didn\u2019t hold, and reports indicate<\/a> that it won\u2019t be renewed. This\u00a0brief ceasefire\u2014and short ceasefires in general, even when they\u00a0do hold<\/a>\u2014simply did not offer enough time to begin tackling the impacts of prolonged violence in this fragile and desperately poor state on its civilian population.
\nEven before this latest round of instability and the March 2015 launch of the Saudi-led military campaign\u00a0in Yemen,\u00a0the country was among the poorest in the Middle East. The U.N. has called the current situation one of the worst humanitarian<\/a> crises in the world.\u00a0The conflict has intensified a long drawn-out\u00a0human\u00a0catastrophe, characterized by endemic poverty, weak governance, and almost non-existent rule of law.<\/p>\n

Yemen shocks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011,\u00a0Yemen\u00a0has reeled from one\u00a0political shock to another. Its\u00a0authoritarian leader President Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted from power by popular pressure but\u00a0his successor, Mansour\u00a0Hadi,\u00a0has\u00a0failed to win the support of his country. Houthi rebels took power in Yemen in September 2014 and by March the following year, President\u00a0Hadi<\/a>\u00a0was forced\u00a0 into exile in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
\nSince then, the country has imploded\u00a0further\u00a0as the Saudi-led coalition has fought the\u00a0Houthi\u00a0rebels, who are widely believed to benefit from Iranian arms and financial support.\u00a0This form of external\u00a0influence by outside Gulf actors has exacerbated the conflict in\u00a0a\u00a0state that has struggled to hold together its national fabric under decades of authoritarian rule.<\/p>\n

Casualties of conflict<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The principal\u00a0victims of the conflict in Yemen are not the armed forces on either side, but ordinary people.\u00a0The\u00a0U.N.<\/a> has reported that since March 2015, an average of 113 people are killed or injured every day in Yemen. These are people who are also mostly unable to meet their food needs, and who lack access to clean water and sanitation. As many as 3.5 million Yemenis are also homeless: either internally displaced or refugees who have fled to other countries.
\nThe\u00a0short 48-hour or\u00a072-hour ceasefires, even if\u00a0respected by the warring factions, are\u00a0like a grain of sand in the desert when it comes to meeting the\u00a0immense needs\u00a0the conflict has generated. As was witnessed this month, such a brief lull in the fighting does not offer\u00a0enough time to bring food, medical supplies, and\u00a0water to the millions of Yemenis who need urgent help. It is certainly not enough time\u00a0to re-build shattered homes, marketplaces, clinics, and hospitals, nor to rescue the hundreds of Yemeni children forced into being child soldiers.\u00a0Reconstruction and housing support for those displaced by conflict and those hosting them in Yemen has put a severe strain on the civilian population. The prolonged nature of Yemen\u2019s conflict also increases the liability the country poses in terms of humanitarian assistance and recovery.<\/p>\n

Resource crisis\u00a0and political will <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Even\u00a0if short ceasefires offered\u00a0a sufficient window for humanitarian and relief agencies, or\u00a0could be extended, there is one significant obstacle in the way: resources for\u00a0help. Although the European Union\u2014as well as states like the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates\u2014have pledged aid and assistance to Yemen within the framework of the Humanitarian Response Plan<\/a>, some pledged funds have failed to materialize, and wider funding calls remain unmet. The U.N. has appealed for $1.63\u00a0billion to help Yemeni civilians\u2014as of this June, however, the U.N. had received only 25 percent<\/a> of \u00a0this funding call; as of November, indications were that receipts would still fall far short of requirements for assistance.
\nIn the future, the United States is\u00a0likely\u00a0to recalibrate its Yemen strategy.\u00a0In 2016, the Obama administration was the most generous\u00a0aid donor<\/a>\u00a0in the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan\u00a0framework; there are no guarantees, however, that a Trump administration will continue to provide the same level of U.S. assistance.\u00a0President-elect Trump has already warned that he is reluctant to fund efforts abroad with money that could benefit U.S. citizens at home. Diplomatically, the Trump administration is likely to retreat from actively mediating conflicts like Yemen\u2019s, diverging from Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s efforts. The new administration should reconsider Washington\u2019s role in providing intelligence and operational military support to the Saudi coalition efforts. American support has dragged out the conflict and contributed to the high humanitarian costs.\u00a0 Moreover, the U.S. should engage much more robustly with Riyadh to limit the civilian casualities in this brutal military campaign.
\nUnfortunately, in its present manifestation, the Yemen ceasefire formula isn\u2019t likely to end the conflict or even protect Yemeni civilians as they continue to be targeted and displaced. The situation may get much worse under a Trump administration, particularly if such efforts are unsupported and aid assistance is cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mid-November announcement\u00a0of yet another\u00a0ceasefire in Yemen\u00a0should\u00a0have\u00a0been\u00a0good news. Ostensibly, the\u00a0short\u00a0break in fighting between a\u00a0Saudi-led\u00a0coalition\u00a0of pro-Yemeni forces against\u00a0Houthi\u00a0rebels was for humanitarian reasons.\u00a0But the ceasefire didn\u2019t hold, and reports indicate that it won\u2019t be renewed. This\u00a0brief ceasefire\u2014and short ceasefires in general, even when they\u00a0do hold\u2014simply did not offer enough time to begin tackling the impacts of prolonged… Continue reading Yemen: Ceasefires and lost opportunities<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":462840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication_archive_type":[298],"class_list":["post-344074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","publication_archive_type-policy-note","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344074"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464857,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344074\/revisions\/464857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344074"},{"taxonomy":"publication_archive_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_archive_type?post=344074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}