Policy LinePolicies on the run [Archives:2005/850/Opinion]

archive
June 13 2005

Fatima Fouad
[email protected]

Who cares about strategies and development policies in this country? Yemen has witnessed serious transitions and events that challenged policies and shaped the present. The people of Yemen think that it is time to do something serious to change the standby mode they are in, but what is that exactly?

Strategies and development plans are important, but they continue to be mocked by the people. The people are willing to bet that policies formulated by the government of whichever nature will not work, cannot work and will fail if they get started. They are only so sure because they have not been a part of the formulation of such policies.

Big broad documents are meaningless to the people, this is not because of the fact that a big percentage of the Yemenis are illiterate and cannot read them, it is because the years have proved that what is written in documents cannot translate easily into a language that the people know: Implementation.

It is also widely known that policies are often formulated by International Donors to fit International standards. Thus, a big part of what is written is shaped by a language that the people cannot understand, and new terms and conditions that overburdens the capacity of the Government to implement them.

In 2003, the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan for Yemen. The document received lots of criticism on both its quality and components from the International Community. Some questioned the importance of the document altogether. The main critique that surrounded the PRSP realised that a big chunk of the public knew nothing about it. Parliament, Ministries, along with the majority of the Civil Society Organisations had little knowledge of what the PRSP is.

To salvage the mistake, more programs were created to raise awareness of these plans, but the more people got aware of it, the less interested they were. The lack of public participation in these plans has created little ownership and belief on the implementation of those policies. This is not a big surprise given that most of the content of the document was based on what needs to happen in Yemen rather than how it should be done.

The new PRSP will be launched soon, it has been developed on an MDG basis (Millennium Development Goals) and taking into consideration the Government's National Development Plans. It is prepared in collaboration with all the interested counterparts in an attempt to evade the participation accusation and to make the content more reality based. There have been effective working groups discussing and formulating the content of this document. However, we are yet to see the reaction from the donors and the people.

The emphasis on getting these development policies 'just right' is not a simple task, but it is a requirement set up by the major donor agencies. One should note that the main driver in igniting these policies, changing them and challenging them has been the International Donor Community in Yemen.

Because of this, donors have remained the sole power in executing, shaping, and questioning these policies. They were the only qualified entity in Yemen with leverage in changing those policies and channelling funds to support them. Civil Society, Parliament and other Ministries have a little role in carefully examining, funding or participating in these policies.

Development Policies are tools for implementing long-term development, but they are not the objective itself. It seems that in Yemen the policies seem to stop at a certain line. There is lots of time and effort spent to produce strategies, time and effort to make them look just right, but little investment in making them work.

The real ownership of such plans is in the hands of those who can make it work. It is about time to start communicating with the people and empowering them to have a role in shaping the future of their country.
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