Yemen

One of the youngest states of the Arabian Peninsula, the present-day Republic of Yemen was born in 1990 from the unification of the Arab and Popular Republics. Located in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, the Republic of Yemen borders with Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the east, the Red Sea to the west and the Gulf of Oman to the south. The population is nearly 30 million and the official language is Arabic.

Affected by conflict and political instability, Yemen is the least developed economy in the Arabian Peninsula. The country enjoyed good economic development until 2011, mainly due to the exploitation of the port of Aden and the country’s oil and natural gas resources. Since 2011, on the heels of the Arab Spring uprisings, Yemen entered a spiral of political instability which reached its peak with the outbreak of the civil war in 2015. The Yemen conflict has also produced some destabilizing spillover effects in neighborhood countries. Despite an agreement between the two belligerent factions, signed in 2019 under the aegis of the United Nations, several unresolved issues jeopardize all attempts at stabilization.

The civil war has seriously affected the economy. To date, the population needs massive humanitarian aid, primarily due to the shortage of basic necessities.