For A1, you will need to find the following information for your country:
Location And Geographical Factors Plus Climate And Environmental Factors:
The Republic of Yemen is located in Western Asia at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It’s a sovereign Arab state and the second-largest nation among all the countries situated on the Arabian Peninsula. The area of Yemen covers a total area of 203,850 sq mi. It shares boundaries with Oman, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea. The coastline of Yemen is 1,906 km, and the total length of the land boundary is 1,746 km. Yemen has a narrow coastal line and flat-topped hills with rugged mountains. It has both the desert, which is in the middle of the country, and the forested interior of the Arabian Peninsula. Changes to its coastal lines happened when the December 2004 tsunami occurred in several countries, including Yemen, which severely affected the fishing business (Janardhana and Al-Qadhi, 2018).
The climate of Yemen has high temperatures combined with humidity, and the highest temperature reaches 54 degrees Centigrade. It is known as a hot-climate country. Due to the desert in the middle of the country, the wind, which blows from the north in summer and south in winter, mostly causes severe sandstorms and a little rain. The ideal temperature in Arabia is considered to be near 20 degrees Centigrade, which occurs between January and February in Yemen.
The environment contains vegetation along the coast of Yemen. There are several common trees, including the date palm and acacia. The cultivation also includes many types of grapes and custard apples, spurge, and euphorbia. The animals which are found in Yemen are leopards, gazelles, and mountain hares. Snakes are not numerous, but in the desert, scorpions are found everywhere. Throughout the country, almost 93 bird species and 66 mammals are found in Yemen (Kelley et al., 2015).
The environmental problems faced by Yemen are scarcity of water, desertification, and soil erosion. The main industry in Yemen is the oil industry; that is why water pollution is the greatest in Yemen. The renewable water resources are 4 cu km, of which 92% is withdrawn annually for farming and only 1% for industry. Agricultural clearing and livestock have destroyed most of the forests on the mountains in Yemen. The National Environmental Council, which was established in 1976, emphasizes conservation, and the government has now created laws in response to forest damage to prevent further damage and regulate the use of the water supply. Protection of water and marine life comes under Law Number 42, 1991 (Al-Fadhli et al., 2015).
Population And Infrastructure:
In the year 2005, according to the United Nations, the population of Yemen was estimated at around 20,727,000, which put Yemen in the 50th position in the overall world ranking of the 193 most populous countries. The population distribution of the country is 4% above 65 years of age and 46% under the age of 15 years. For every 100 females, there were 103 males in the country. The rate of growth in the population was 3.3% from 2005 to 2010, which is too high according to the United Nations. Yemen is placed among the highest in the world when it comes to women’s fertility, which is 6.8 births per woman (Laub, 2016).
Yemen has relatively underdeveloped and poor infrastructure. The primary and secondary roads in Yemen are serviced by a network of over 67,000 kilometers. Yemen has 7,700 kilometers of paved roads. The roads in the southern part of Yemen are in quite bad condition. Heavy rains and flash floods have damaged those roads. Economic development relies on the condition of roads in Yemen, and analysts consider the condition of roads a major barrier to the development of Yemen. The country has no railway system. There are five major airports in Yemen. Those are located in the major cities of Sanaa, Rayyan, Aden, Taiz, and Hodeida. Renovation of the Sanaa and Aden airports started in 2000. The official airline of the country is Yemenia, which is protected by the government from competition from foreign airlines. This airline has been criticized several times for not being privatized for better performance and service, but the government has been reluctant and owns 51% of its shares. There are six ports in the country. All the ports are famous for delays in both loading and unloading except the one located in Aden. The Port of Hodeida focuses mainly on domestic activity, and the Aden Terminal, which started in March 1999, is taking over as the main port because of its effective and efficient services.
The Public Electricity Corporation serves as the only electricity supplier in Yemen. The capacity of this electricity supplier is 400 megawatts, which barely meets the country’s electricity needs. Only 30% of the population has access to electricity, and the lack of capacity results in repeated blackouts and shortages (Al-Aghbari et al., 2015).
Telecommunication services in Yemen are known as unreliable because they are often interrupted for security reasons. There were 249,515 lines working in 1998, and the capacity of the service was 296,129 lines. Internet service is costly, and there is only one service provider for 12,000 users. This service is also unreliable because of poor service (Peterson, 2016).
Relevant Historical Background And Politics (Do Not Write About The History Of The Country, Who Colonised It, Which Presidents It Has Had – Focus On Things Like: Is There Constant Warfare, Dictatorship, Democracy, Political Coups, Corruption…):
The politics of Yemen turned into an uncertain state because of the coup d’état in 2014-15. The armed forces, under the leadership of the Houthis, took control of the government of Yemen, and after the coup, they announced the dissolution of parliament. They planned to dissolve the government and install a presidential council, supreme revolutionary council, and transitional national council, which would govern the country for a short period. Meanwhile, the president, who was replaced by the coup, had declared that he was still in office and was also working for the establishment of a rival government (Vasile and COCOŞ, 2015). Prior to this unstable political condition, Yemen’s political framework was based on semi-presidential representation in which the head of state was the President, and the Prime Minister was appointed by the President, who would head the current government. The actual aim of designing this system was that the country would run on a multi-party system, but in reality, the government was controlled by only one party, which dominated the politics of Yemen. The judiciary system was independent, but in reality, its activities were always influenced by the executive branch of government (Musibah, Shahzad and Fadzil, 2015).
The serious problem faced by Yemen is corruption. It is known to be the most corrupt nation in the Gulf region. Due to corruption, it is also the poorest among the countries surrounding it, and the system lacks control and accountability. The World Bank remarked that corruption in the country is present in all public affairs. The reason for bad and poor services in electricity, telecommunication, education, and health is corruption, which is part of the system in Yemen. Yemen is 170th out of 176 countries on the list in Transparency International’s 2016 report (Al-Iryani, de Janvry and Sadoulet, 2015).
For A2, you will need to find the following information for your country:
Agriculture/Livestock (Focus On Food Sources Particularly Relevant To Their Diet), Food Security, Access To Water:
Yemen’s climate is considered to make it the most agricultural nation compared with other countries on the Arabian Peninsula. An important part of the economy is based on Yemen’s agriculture, which was 15% of GDP in 2013. Even though agricultural land is limited and there is a lack of water and frequent droughts, agriculture still makes up the main part of the economy. Fifty percent of employment in the country is related to agriculture on the 3% of arable area. Yemen has the potential for agricultural self-sufficiency, but the agricultural trade deficit was $947 million (Peterman, 2015).
Apart from agriculture, Yemen is famous for coffee production. The word Mocha comes from the port of Yemen, Al-Mukha. The cash crop is mainly qat, and Yemenis chew it on a daily basis, but it is not exported due to its perishable nature. The vegetables and fruits that are farmed in Yemen are only sufficient for domestic use, even though advanced methods of irrigation are used. Border restrictions also cause a barrier to international trade when it comes to exporting. The output of agriculture in 2004 included tomatoes, rapeseed, cotton, coffee, sorghum, and bananas, with a total of 1,000 tons (Zawahri, 2017).
Nutrition/Health Issues: Rates Of Malnutrition, Rates Of Nutritional Deficiencies, Communicable Diseases:
The major health problems associated with malnutrition and other diseases cause 30% of children under five years of age to be malnourished. Widespread diseases, including tuberculosis, hepatitis, cough, and typhoid fever, exist in Yemen due to poor sewage disposal and the neglect of general health hazards. Only 69% of the population has access to safe drinking water, with adequate sanitation available to only 45% of the population. The civil conflict that happened in 1994 created food, water, and medical shortages in Aden, which caused major health problems. In 2004, it was estimated that for every 1,000 people, there were only 45 nurses, 22 physicians, and one dentist. Only 6.5% of GDP was contributed to health care expenditure (Banajeh, 2017).
Life expectancy estimated in 2005 was only 61.75 years, and the mortality rate of infants was 61.50 per 1,000 births in that year. Children’s immunization rates up to one year were 62% for diphtheria and tuberculosis, 57% for polio, and 51% for measles. The overall crude birth rate as of 2002 was estimated at 43, and the mortality rate was 9.3 per 1,000 people. In 2003, the HIV/AIDS prevalence was 0.1 per 100 adults. There were 1,200 people in the country in 2004 who were living with HIV/AIDS (Mohamed, Elayah and Schulpen, 2017).
Current Programmes Running In The Country To Improve Nutritional Status That You Identified In Your Searches:
The Emergency Health and Nutrition Project is running to improve nutrition in Yemen. The main aim of the project is to contribute to basic essential health and nutrition services for the population of Yemen. The condition of malnutrition in Yemen is caused by the ongoing conflict and food-security crisis (De Souza, 2017).
The following are the aims of this program:
- Provide support in the prevention and treatment of malnutrition in Yemen, which is facing the problem of food insecurity.
- Modify the basic health system of Yemen and provide intermediate results in the improvement of essential health and nutrition services (Qirbi and Ismail, 2017).
References
Al-Aghbari, A., Abu-Ulbeh, W., Ibrahim, O. and Saeed, F., 2015. The Readiness and Limitations of E-Government in Yemen. Jurnal Teknologi, 73(2), pp. 107-115.
Al-Fadhli, A.A., Othman, M., Rashed, A. and Ramasamy, A., 2015. Telehealth in Yemen: An Overview and a Proposed Model. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computing and Informatics,(ICOCI 2015, Istanbul, Turkey)(pp. 121-126).
Al-Iryani, L., de Janvry, A. and Sadoulet, E., 2015. The Yemen Social Fund for Development: An Effective Community-Based Approach amid Political Instability. International Peacekeeping, 22(4), pp. 321-336.
Banajeh, S.M., 2017. Patterns and Trends in the Attributable Fractions of under-5 Years Hospitalization and Inpatient Death for Neonates, Infectious Diseases, and Severe Acute Malnutrition in Yemen: A Retrospective Data Analysis. International Journal of Child Health and Nutrition, 6(1), pp. 34-42.
De Souza, L.R., 2017. Correlates of child undernutrition in Yemen. Bandung: Journal of the Global South, 4(1), p. 3.
Janardhana, M.R. and Al-Qadhi, A.A.A.A., 2018. Slope Stability Assessment in and around Taiz City, Yemen, Using Landslide Possibility Index (LPI). European Journal of Advances in Engineering and Technology, 5(1), pp. 8-17.
Kelley, C.P., Funk, C.C., McNally, A. and Shukla, S., 2015, December. Climate Change And Hydrologic Instability In Yemen. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts.
Laub, Z., 2016. Yemen is in crisis. Council on Foreign Relations, 19.
Mohamed, H., Elayah, M. and Schulpen, L.W.M., 2017. Yemen between the impact of the climate change and the ongoing Saudi-Yemen war: A real tragedy.
Musibah, A.S., Shahzad, A. and Fadzil, F.H.B., 2015. Analyzing the Business and Economic Scenario of Foreign Direct Investment in Yemen Compared with That of Selected Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). International Journal of Business and Information, 10(1), p. 125.
Peterman, A., 2015. Women’s Economic Empowerment: Indicators and survey design.
Peterson, J.E., 2016. Yemen: The search for a modern state. Routledge.
Qirbi, N. and Ismail, S.A., 2017. Health system functionality in a low-income country in the midst of conflict: the case of Yemen. Health policy and planning, 32(6), pp. 911-922.
Vasile, P.O.P.A. and COCOŞ, O., 2015. THE ROLE OF SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN PERPETUATING THE CONFLICTS IN YEMEN. Revista Română de Geografie Politică Year XVI, (2), pp. 65-75.
Zawahri, N.A., 2017. Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa.
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