Executive Secretary of ESCWA, Dr. Hazem El-Beblawi to the Yemen Times: “The volume of activities that we are Involved in, in Yemen is not as much as we would like” [Archives:2000/11/Business & Economy]
March 13 2000
Q: What is the resultant of your meetings with Yemeni officials?
A: I met with Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Supply, Planning, and of Telecommunications, the head of environment body, the head of water authority and the head of population administration. I also held a meeting with all UN agencies working here and some representatives of donor countries to give them some idea about our program and what we are doing in Yemen in order to coordinate and to enforce our work.
As a result there is a full recognition on part of Yemeni government. They need to draw more ESCWA expertise. We have already identified a few areas in the field of Trade and environment, the regional advisor will stay here for sometime. In other areas, each of the regional advisors is meeting with his counterpart to define the areas, the reports of which will be submitted to us in the future, proposing that they or others to come again.
Q: Can you give us an idea about the activities of the UN in Yemen?
A: I am in charge of the region only. I do not know in details what are those activities. But we are more concerned in the region and also with the member states of the organization. Our support is as part of our regional prospective plans. We look into problems of the region which are common to many countries. Then we will help. We also if we have pilot study which started in one place in order to generalize it in other places. So our prospective role is characterized by two things: one even if we give advice to one country, we give this advice within a regional prospect. We give them advice taking into consideration what is happening in the neighboring countries and assort that the development will be complementary and coordinated. The other thing is that we are not a specialized agency in agriculture or population and so on. We are covering all these areas so when we help a country in one of these areas we give it a more multi-disciplinary rather than from a narrow perspective of one of these fields. So our strength and our weakness is that we try to bring the regional prospect in our work and we bring this integrated approach for our activities
Q: When did cooperation with Yemen start?
A: Cooperation with Yemen started from the very beginning of the regional commission. As a matter of fact, the first executive secretary of the regional commission ESCWA, was a Yemeni for more than 10 years. There is a long working relation between Yemen and the ESCWA. However, we felt that during the last few years, the volume of activities that we are giving to Yemen is not as we would have wished, particularly that we consider Yemen to be a priority area for us because it is one of two member states which are less-developed countries. So we should give them more attention than the rest of the region
Q: Do you think that Yemen has benefited from ESCWA’s help?
A: I wish to hope so because otherwise our visit will be futile. Technical assistance can not be measured exactly and the message we are conveying is sometimes enforcing the message coming from other institutions such as the World Bank or other UN agencies. But spreading the same message more of the advice will bring some changes in the attitude, in the perception in the awareness but I can not say that Yemen has changed its policy because of ESCWA’s advice or because of UNIDO’s or the World Bank’s. This is a cumulative activity. The end result of it is to change attitude to bring new ideas to have a more awareness of the real problem.
Q: Any last word?
A: Like everyone, from time to time we have to have a sort of soul searching. So ESCWA after 25 years is going through this kind of total reassessment of its work. This was particularly requested from the member states when we celebrated the 25th anniversary. To that affect, we just held in Beirut a brainstorming meeting among some eminent persons from different countries including Yemen to see how ESCWA can be more helpful to the member states in the new century. In this meeting, Muhsen Al-Aini was one of these participants and we identified over and above what we are doing as part of our routine work in the areas I have mentioned. It was indicated that there are at least three areas which needed some special attention. One area is related to the natural resources and in particular to the issue of the paradox of the region which is facing extreme shortage in water and relatively abundance in energy and how can we use this mixture of insufficiency in water and relative abundance in energy in order to promote the water future of the region taking into consideration the environmental and, of course, to promote technology development in as far as to bring this forward. This is one line related to the question of natural resources but to concentrate on water in its relation to energy. One other area was related to the value system. When we discussed matters of development we learned to compile economic with social and there is no such a thing like economic development without social and human development. The question of our cultural values was also brought. This region owns some specific values, but, to what extent these values and norms are conducive or otherwise to development. But also this area or these values are not given their part of the evolution and their part of the institutional aspect and this is to a great extent the outcome of the political and the economic institutions. The institutional aspect as to the relevant institutions needed for development such as an adequate information system, legal system and enforcement of the role of law and also the good governance and the respect of human rights. These are three areas which were indicated to us in the last meeting; one captures the natural resources, one captures the value system and one captures the institutional system
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