By Adnan Hizam - Last year saw a dramatic reduction of poverty in Yemen, says a new report. The poverty rate fell from 41.8 percent in 1998 to 35.5 percent in 2005. The 2005 progress report on poverty reduction strategies shows that the urban poor have been the primary beneficiaries of this drop, as the general poverty indicators fell in urban areas by 39 percent, but only fell by 9 percent in the rural areas, said the head of a poverty-monitoring unit in the Ministry of Planning, Abdul-Hakeem al-Sharjabi in a symposium on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty held last Tuesday in Sana’a city.

The one-day symposium was organized by Ministry of Planning in cooperation with the United National Development Program and a group of civic organizations. In the symposium, Dr. Yahya al-Mutawakel, Deputy Minister of Planning & International Cooperation said that the UN Secretary General confirmed the commitment of donors to their obligations to fulfill the first goal of the Millennium Development plan, which is to halve poverty by 2015.

“It is a collective responsibility to do this, by setting up a real partnership among the government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector,” he said. Since 1990s, the government of Yemen has adopted strategies for development and combating poverty. It began fighting poverty by drawing up plans, including a five-year plan and strategy for poverty reduction. The government has tried, through its policies, to reduce the poverty rate, especially in rural areas. The government looks at contributions from civil society organizations, as well as from the private sector, in its efforts to eliminate poverty.

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is designed to call international attention to the problem, said Flavia Pansieri, UNDP resident representative to Sana’a. Several countries have already managed to reach the goal of halving hunger by 2015, she said, though many are still far behind. “No country alone can fight poverty without a truly global partnership for development,” she said.

“We really need to stress the importance of not only our first goal of reducing poverty, but also of the eight goals of the millennium, which include realizing a global partnership for development,” she said. She recognized there has been progress in combating poverty, but said that it has been not enough to make the goal by 2015, if we continue at the current rate.

“Therefore, what we need and what we should reconfirm here today is the contact between the national authorities and the Yemeni societies at large on one hand, and the international community on the other, to work together to reach the goal,” she said. Yemen needs considerable help from outside to succeed, she said. “It is important for those of us who are outside partners of the government to recognize that we have a responsibility to engage more actively,” she said.

It is not only a matter of official development assistance coming in from outside, it is also matter of using wealth transparently, and in line with the resources Yemen has. In the symposium, the Deputy Minister of Planning, Dr. Muthar al-Abbasi presented a paper on a third development plan for social and economic development for poverty reduction, in which he outlined the main challenges of development and how to tackle poverty for the coming five years.

Nabil Majad presented a paper in which he discussed the role of various organizations in fighting poverty and increasing development. The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been observed every year since 1993, when the General Assembly designated October 17 to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries, particularly in developing countries - a need that has become a development priority.
Source: Yemen Observer