LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A political settlement between Shi’ite Muslim rebels and the government is unlikely to bring relief to tens of thousands of Yemenis struggling with poverty, hunger and rampant unemployment, according to aid experts.
The accord aims to address a decade-old Shi'ite Houthi insurgency and a spate of bloodshed this month that poses a major threat to U.N.-backed efforts to stabilise the country, which is also struggling to contain al Qaeda militants and southern secessionists.
Despite the settlement, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi warned Yemenis on Tuesday that their country was heading towards civil war after Houthi rebels took over the capital Sanaa, a move that has allowed the insurgents to dictate settlement terms to a weakened, fractured government.
Aid workers fear further violence will worsen the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East's poorest country, where half the population does not know where its next meal will come from, cannot access safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
"It is like a pot that is about to boil over," Jonathan Cunliffe, International Medical Corps (IMC) country director in Yemen, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.
"Getting access to people in need is very difficult because it is such a multi-faceted conflict and there are so many deep-rooted problems."
Chiara Lepora, programme manager for Medecins Sans Frontiers, said while attention is focused on the situation in Sanaa, where an estimated 200 people died and thousands were displaced during recent fighting, violent clashes happen every day in Yemen.
"When they're clashes, it becomes more difficult for mothers to get to health centres and simple conditions, like diarrhoea or respiratory infections, can quickly turn into something more complicated and add to malnutrition problems too," she told Thomson Reuters Foundation from MSF's operations centre in Dubai.
Some 14.7 million people - more than half the population - are in need of aid, with more than 300,000 driven from their homes by successive outbursts of violence over the past decade.
Yemen's young people are particularly vulnerable - half of children under five are stunted and youth unemployment is 60 percent.
As part of its programmes, the IMC is training Yemeni health workers to take on responsibility for nutrition programmes in rural areas surrounding Sanaa.
"We trying to address underlying issues and change behaviour to achieve long-term success," said Cunliffe. "If you can improve nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child's life, you can achieve a lot."
AID TO THE RESCUE?
Steven Zyck, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think tank, said even though Yemen is receiving unprecedented levels of humanitarian aid, it is unlikely improve the situation markedly.
"What we’re likely to see is a patchwork quilt of humanitarian aid access," Zyck told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that armed groups regularly determine who gets access to affected people.
"Donor governments have recognised the scale of the crisis, they're sending more money, more aid workers - but it's core humanitarian aid alleviating suffering, it's palliative."
Zyck said there was no obvious solution to the crisis.
"Thinking and planning about long-term development in Yemen won't truly happen until there is a protracted period of relative calm and stability, which we haven't seen in recent years and …are unlikely to see in the coming years," he said.
Humanitarian assistance as a proportion of total aid to Yemen jumped to 62 percent in 2011, the year when President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule ended following a popular uprising, from just nine percent in 2009. In 2013 it stood at 59 percent, data compiled by the ODI shows.
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