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I visited Yemen for the World Bank in the 1980s. At the time there were two Yemens ... the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). Our team had two assignments:
- to assess the performance of the World Bank financed government investment program in PDRY
- to assess the performance of the World Bank financed shrimp fisheries project in Hodeidah, YAR.
Our team arrived in Aden, PDRY by air and quickly learned something of the socio-economic environment of the country. At the time PDRY was heavily influenced at the government level by the Soviet Union, and there were credible reports that the Soviet Union was building a submarine base on the island of Socotra, off the coast of PDRY and governed as a part of PDRY. Interaction with local people suggested that the economy was severely stressed and people missed the good old days when Aden was active as a Royal Navy base and a coaling station for ships in transit from India to Europe.
Security experts in the USA had concern that with PDRY under the influence of the Soviet Union and Somalia also under the influence of the Soviet Union and an emerging Soviet submarine base on Socotra, that it was time to do something. The Carter administration made a decision to shift its economic and military support from Ethiopia to Somalia ... a decision that helped to precipitate the 1978 war between Ethiopia and Somalia.
My simple understanding of PDRY was that it was mainly desert ... lowland and flat along the coast, and mountainous inland. Several cities were located along the coast, and especially Aden that had been an important port city for many decades when people travelled by ship between Europe and India.
In the days before air conditioning travel between Europe and India was more comfortable on the North side ot the ship ... and this was the origin of the British POSH class who were able to pay for cabins on the North side ... Port (left) side going Out and Starbord (right) side coming Home.
The World Bank's investment program around Aden was rather modest. We needed to look at pojects around PDRY. We flew to Mukalla (Al Mukalla) where a World Bank funded fish meal plant was located. I had been a CFO of an international (shrimpg) fishing company, and I do know something about the economics of the industry. The new fish meal plant investment was operating at around 20% of its capacity and losing money. Initially, the plant was losing money because there were only two vessels fishing to supply the plant and not enough fish were being caught. More vessels were acquired and the amount of fish landed stayed more of less the same. This should not have been a surprise. The behavior of fish stocks is rarely linear, but way more complex. The advice given to the Yemenis by FAO was simply wrong and the the results achieved should have come as no suprise.
We moved on from Makala by road.
It was during this ride that I learned about Irish bridges. From time to time there are massive floods caused by torrential rain in the mountains, which then flows to the sea destroyng everything it is path. Conventional bridges over these watercourses would simply get swept away. Engineers created roads through these watercourses which are dry most of the time but periodically get massive water flows which would wash out everything in its path. They designed causeways or bridges that allowed the water to flow over the road rather than attempting to flow under a bridge. These came to be referred to as Irish bridges!
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Managing water using roads in Yemen
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Open IFAD-Yemen-water-from-roads.pdf
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After Mukalla, our next destination was Nishtun where the World Bank was financing the development of a new fishing port and shore processing facilities. It was being built by Danish contractors who had considerable experience in this kind of work.
The whole World Bank team had a shock when we reached Nishtun and had our first view of the new fishing port. The harbour, quays and the buildings that were going to be the shore processing plants were maybe 70% complete. There were no fishing vessels ... but there were several large military landing craft disgorging all sorts of military equipment ... artillery piece, armoured vehicles and all sorts of supplies. These were Soviet supply ships delivering munitions to PDRY.
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Small Cargo Vessel in Nishtun Harbour - 1983
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The World Bank team leader was in shock. He knew that it was absolutely forbidden for World Bank investment to serve military purposes ... and this fishing port was now effectively a part of a military supply line rather than being a fishing port that would help to feed the Yemeni people.
The map belows shows the location of the Nishtun. It is quite close to the Yemen Oman border. Oman is very different from Yemen and a relatively progressive for this part of the world.
Over the years in the 1980s and 90s I did quite a lot of work for Overseas Seafood Operations (OSO) and Intersea. In Oman, these companies managed a small fleet of fishing vessels. This country went from being one of the more backward in the region to being much more modern and more prosperous over a relatively short period.
The Oman Yemen border was a part of the Soviet / Western front line at this time. There were incidents, but they diminisged after the demise of the old Soviet Union.
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After our visit to Nishtun, we returned by road to Mukalla and then by air to Aden. From Aden we flew to Hodeidah (Al-Hudaydah), in YAR.
Our team's assignments was to evaluate the performance of a World Bank shrimp fishing project. The one of the main components of the project was the acquisition of 20 shrimp trawlers which were to operate out of the Hodeidah port.
About five years before when I was the CFO of Continental Seafoods (CSF) I had oversight responsibility for a shrimp fishery resource study that CSF had carried out in collaboration with FAO in the Red Sea based in Hodeidah. We had concluded that it would be viable to base just 2 trawlers in Hodeidah.
This CSF report was the basis for the World Bank's preparation of this proect. It turned out, however, that the project was going to buy and operate 20 trawlers, rather than the 2 that had been recommended. How could this be?
Eventually, it was discovered that that CSF's 300 plus page report to FAO in English had been summarized in Arabic by a translator that confused our estimate of the biomass of the shrimp resource with the sustainable catch that could be supported by the resource.
This, of course begs the question of why nobody at the World Bank picked up this problem during the project design phase.
There was another major issue between the project and the World Bank. The World Bank had not been able to obtain an audited copy of the project accounts, and had concluded that the project accounting essentially did not exist.
In very short order I was able to ascertain that there was a very competent accountant and pretty good financial accounting and management accounting. The problem was that it was all in Arabic and it appeared that nobody at the World Bank had recognised that getting these Arabic accounts into English was being a difficulty.
Though I am not an Arabic speaker, like the project accountant, I understand accounting. I learned how Arabic numerals work and working together with the project accountant we were able to construct a Lotus spreadsheet that had both Arabic and English labels for all the elements. It took about a day to do this translation, at which point our team could understand how the project was progressing.
At this point it became very clear that the project was heading towards catastrophic failure. In addition to the problem of the mismatch between fishing effort and the shrimp resource, it became clear that the puchase price for the trawlers was way higher than it should be ... and it was very clear that major kickbacks were going to senior people in the YAR political system including Ali Abdullah Saleh
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Ali Abdullah Saleh
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Our evaluation team concluded that continuing to fund this project was a case of disburing good money after bad. We were able to convince the World Bank in Washington, and Danida in Copenhagen that was cofinancing the project that the project should be terminated. This was unusual, but given the circumstances, the right thing to do.
The team travelled from Hodeidah to Sanaʽa ... a very old city and the Capital of Yemen (YAR) to meet with the government and present 'Aide Memoire' and our findings. The road trip from Hodeidah to Sanaʽa is spectacular and scary. It is not very far, but the terrain is mountainous, the road narrow and most vehicles in not very good condition. We got to Sana'a.
However, the President, Ali Abdullah Saleh got wind of what we were recommending and he refused to let the government meet with out team as is customary. We extended our stay for a few days, but then left without having this wrap-up meeting.
Subsequently Saleh argued that because we had not had the wrap-up meeting our work and conclusions were invalid. To my disgust, the World Bank caved and agreed to continue the project ... which to nobody's surprise consumed the money, but never became operational.
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Open file 0060
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Open file 0079
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Yemen's Saleh heads to US for medical care ...
January 2012 ... President asks his people for forgiveness for 'any shortcomings' during his 33-year rule and says he will return.
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Open file 2109
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YEMEN BEING DESTROYED ... SAUDI ARABIA AND USA GETTING BENEFITS
Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen
How the U.S. could stop weapon sales if it wanted to.
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Open txt00016731
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