Ismail Al-Ghabery
Yemen Times
Community and productive families centers supervised by the national program for developing community and productive families are part of social development programs aiming at helping families living in poverty. These centers give women the priority in getting integrated in development through training and giving them necessary technical skills to use in establishing projects to increase their income.
Undoubtedly graduates from 41 centers spread all over the country will need proper mechanisms to be able to participate effectively in families, unions and workshops.

Targets of those centers
The national program for developing community and productive families was first founded in 1998. The program aimed at preparing, planning and implementing programs to help those living under poverty line depending on lists made by social security and field surveys that identified poverty pockets and be productive in the community.

Present sectors
Recently, the following sectors are present.
1. handicrafts,
2. ornamentation and sculpture,
3. sewing,
4. manual and mechanical stitching,
5. food making and preservation,
6. knitting,
7. hairdressing,
8. leather handicrafts
9. home maid,
10. typing and computing.
Intended sectors
There is an intention to introduce the following sectors:
carpeting, pottery, carpentry, ceramic, accessories, porcelain, breeding poultry and bees.
 

Projects and programs financing those centers
The woman affiliation program was financed by United Nations Population Fund UNFPA which aimed at developing six centers in Sana'a, Al.Mahweet, Aden, Taiz, Haifan and Lahj through expanding training programs and including new professions like computing, knitting, textiles making, modern secretarial work, sculpture on wood, family health, running small projects and eliminating illiteracy.
The program was implemented in the years 97,98and 99. All the six centers were supplied with needed tools, machines and cars, skills and efficiency of trainees was improved.
The estimated cost was at 1.2 million Dollars paid by the UNFPA in addition to four million Riyals paid by the Yemeni government.

New projects
o Poverty elimination project
This project which is financed by the United Nations Population Fund UNDP and other financing parties includes many elements, among which is financing productive family centers with an amount of 621860 US Dollars to develop the work of centers in Sana'a, Al.Mokalla, Al.Hodaida, Al.sheik Othman and Hajja and give loans to graduated women to start their own projects.

oDeveloping technicians project
The social development fund is implementing a project of preparing productive training women teachers in sewing and stitching in some of productive families centers with a cost of 48 thousand Dollars to increase training effectiveness for those joining the centers.

o Woman affiliation program keeps supporting community and productive families centers
By 1998 the project of woman affiliation came to an end then it was agreed with the UNFPA to start again in 2000 aiming at improving methods of work, supporting graduates and starting new centers in new regions.

o Small loans project
The ministry of social security approved in June 1998 the project of small loans. The project aims at giving loans to private organizations to start small projects. The ministry has supported recently the starting of private societies for centers' graduates, and indeed the first society has been established in Sana'a . Preparations are being made to start similar societies in other governorates. The project is supported by the United Nations Development Program with a gross cost of 1.6 million US Dollars.

o Building new centers
To overcome the problem of high rents and having to move from one place to another, the ministry have started building projects to provide those centers with permanent places. Some have been finished and the other are under construction. the ministry has built 7 centers in Sana'a , Abian, Al.Hodaida, Hajja and Al.Jof, yet there are 4 centers under construction in Al.Mokalla, Saioon, Al.Dalea and Amran. The ministry received a building in Al.Sheik Othman from one of the social figures there to use it as a center which will be funded by the United Nations Development Program UNDP.
Despite of the services presented by the program and the good results of its actions but it should always be given new elements to ensure its continuity and complete what it misses. In another word the program must have a specific vision to get along with the new situations. This vision is represented by starting a bank for destitute people to reduce the gap between training and production which we hope will support the following:
1. starting economic utility units,
2. loans giving units,
3. starting productive units in the centers.

All the above will create chances for the program towards:
1. The utmost use of raw materials of the environment based on families' members abilities in making simple handicrafts.
2. Engaging the community in such social projects by giving administration to the centers and the execution to private societies according to legal regulations.
3. Getting rid of all bureaucratic administrative restrictions and making use of the flexibility of execution. On the other side, the government will be given the right to call off the self supervision of those centers in case of ignoring the regulations. The ministry should have an integrated plan to apply these trends. Ministries of planing and finance should also take part in planing and implementing of these trends.

Yasser M. Ahmed
Yemen Times
Yemen is considered one of the twenty poorest countries that have low levels of growth and gross national product (GNP) despite the passing of three decades since it started its economic reform.
In 1999, the gross national product was 6.144 million dollars while population was 17.7 million which means an annual income of 347 dollars per capita ( less than one dollar for each person per day which represents the international poverty line) and also representing 6.7% of the international average of 5.130 dollars.
With this brief introduction "the strategic view of Yemen 2025" seminar started in the consultative council in cooperation with the ministry of planning and growth. Many specialists and university teachers took part in this seminar in which they presented papers diagnosing problems facing Yemenis in addition to the challenges for development like the high birth rate and the vast immigration of people from the country to large cities suffering from unemployment, poverty and water shortage. Level of education in Yemen has declined drastically where ignorant people represent 56% of the population of which 76% are females and 37% are males. Students graduating or leaving schools before graduation are almost ignorant or, most cases, half educated. Even those graduating from universities cannot practice what the were taught.
Health service doesn't cover more than 40% of the population and those who are mostly affected by poor health services are women and children.
The biggest challenge is the water shortage. Yemen is considered one of the poorest in water resources where the individual share is not more than 146 cubic meters per year while water poverty line is 1555cubic meters for irrigation and 155 cubic meter for other uses. Those who benefit from water network are about 82% in the cities and this percentage go as low as 12% in rural areas.
All suggestions made to adjust economic and social development aimed at raising the income of the individual within the next 25 years to 1800 - 2200 dollars. This goal is associated with varying resources of the gross domestic product (GDP) instead of relying almost totally on producing oil and gas which represent about 31% of the gross domestic product. This economical growth is strongly associated with developing social, intellectual and political structure.
Here, the needs for strategic vision become obvious in:
- demographic sector,
- social sector,
- health sector, which requires increasing the numbers of doctors and nurses from 3800 and 7306 respectively to 35000 and 105000 in the year 2025,
- teaching and training fields: it is expected to have 8400 schools built within the next 25 years with a total approximate cost of 840 million American dollars( 100 thousand dollars for a nine classroom school),
- manpower and labor market,
- sector of culture: Yemen has a big and varied cultural heritage deeply rooted in the history like the civilizations of Saba'a , Maeen and Himiar.
All papers stressed maintaining the Yemeni historic and cultural heritage, consolidating the Yemeni identity of the next generations and eliminating the wide spread habit of revenge among people,
- political sector: Yemeni unity has always been an essential target and worked for by all Yemenis until the dream came true in May 1990 . The last witnessed great political accomplishments like allowing all political parties to work freely for peaceful transfer of power. The presidential elections in 1999 were a good example of the new political trend in Yemen.
Revival of Yemen requires all efforts to enhance accomplishments made and to go ahead with the political democracy into more advanced stages reaching a mature and democratic society.
To achieve those targets, strategic vision should focus on:

- enhancing democratic political practice,
- human rights,
- domestic authority,
- civil community,
- traditions of political practice and
- foreign policy.