Future Foresight

The Political Development Forum looks at Yemen comprehensively and from its various dimensions with the aim of diagnosing and identifying the most important challenges that will face Yemen during the next decade.

The future, with its needs and needs, represents the core and basis of PDF’s interest. However, PDF lives in the present and is aware of its reality. It interacts with events and deals with them, responds to their influences and confronts them because of the constraints and obstacles it produces. In order for PDF to be able to achieve all of this efficiently, professionally and effectively, its programs were divided into two groups: The group related to the future, and the group related to confronting and dealing with present events.

A pause in front of the future

This program is a symposium coinciding with the official launch of PDF’s activity, which took place in two sessions. The first was devoted to looking at Yemen comprehensively and from its various dimensions for the purpose of diagnosing and identifying the most important challenges that Yemen will face during the next decade. The second episode will be devoted to presenting proposed policies to confront these challenges. Three leading figures from the three main parties participated in the two episodes. The General People’s Congress, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah Party), and Yemen Socialist Party.

In order to ensure objective and useful results for this symposium, it was governed by the following principles:

Emphasizing that participants are leaders at the higher levels of their parties, but with their own personal capacity.
The papers presented for the first session did not address the proposed solutions and policies to confront future challenges, so the focus was on diagnosis only and exposure to entities or events causing these challenges will also be avoided.
The PDF collects and arranges the challenges presented by the three participants in the first episode and delivers them to all of them so that they can present their papers for the second episode.

Future Foresight Scenarios Program Project (Yemen 2020)

The PDF implemented this program in partnership with the German Frerich-Ebert Foundation, Yemen Office, in several stages according to a modern methodological method based on the idea of scenarios, which is being used in Yemen for the first time. The agreement for this program was signed at this stage at the beginning of July 2008 in order to prepare five modern studies according to the idea of the scenarios about the five most important issues, three of which are future problems, namely (water), (population, and the economy after oil depletion), and two studies are future solutions, which are (local government) and (Yemeni-Gulf relations)

Since the beginning of the year 2009, five discussion panels have been held at varying intervals, in the presence of a team of experts, researchers and academics from inside and outside Yemen who have enriched these studies with more discussions and insights. These episodes are as follows:

First discussion session: It was held at the headquarters of the World Bank office in Sana’a on Monday, March 23, 2009, and included a review of the paper (Economy and Post-Oil Depletion Scenarios) by Professor Dr. Mohamed Al-Afandi. The seminar was distinguished by the presence of a representative of the World Bank, experts from the World Bank office, specialized researchers and academics, and a number of representatives of competent government agencies.

Second discussion session: It was held at the headquarters of the German Technical Cooperation Foundation office, on Wednesday, April 22, 2009, and included a review of the paper (Water Security: The Reality and Future of Water in Yemen) by Professor Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Al-Hamdi. It was distinguished by the presence of experts, researchers, specialists, academics, and a number of representatives of relevant government agencies.

Third discussion session: It was held in the hall of the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation in Sana’a on Saturday, May 30, 2009 AD, and included a review of the paper (Yemen and its population in 2020 AD – a forward-looking vision) by Professor Dr. Raoufah Hassan Al-Sharqi. The seminar was distinguished by the presence of specialists, foreign experts, researchers, academics, and representatives of competent government agencies.

Fourth discussion session: It was held in the hall of the Shahran Hotel in Sana’a on Sunday, June 28, 2009, and included a review of the paper (Local governance within the framework of society and the state in Yemen – its problems and consequences) by Professor Dr. Mohamed Mohsen Al-Dhaheri, in the presence of specialists, experts, researchers, academics, and representatives of relevant government agencies.

Fifth discussion session: It was held in the hall of the Movenpick Hotel, Sana’a, on Thursday, November 19, 2009, and included a review of a paper (Foreseeing the future of Yemen’s relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries) by Professor Abdel Nasser Al-Mawadee. It was distinguished by the presence of academic figures from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and the Sultanate of Oman, as well as experts, specialists, researchers, academics, and representatives of government related agencies.

You can download the Yemen Twenty Twenty booklet from the library on our website