New Working Paper on Understanding Yemen's Economy
This working paper, authored by Richard Barltrop, TPP Associate and LSE Middle East Centre visiting senior fellow, explores how the prevailing picture of Yemen's economy is incomplete and misleading. Economic estimates ignore between half and two-thirds of the country. Analyses overlook Yemen’s relative strengths in infrastructure, agriculture and remittances, and overestimate the importance of oil and gas. This inaccurate picture of Yemen’s economy, which ignores the political context, has significant consequences. It contributes to an international misapprehension, whereby the country’s economy is seen primarily in terms of precarity and humanitarian emergency, with capabilities and resilience under-recognised.
The paper makes four recommendations to the international community:
1. Take a political economy perspective, combining analysis of Yemen’s economy with an understanding of the actual political and governance situation in the country.
2. Move away from unexamined assumptions and clichés about Yemen, and instead find and use new sources of data.
3. Draw on more accurate understandings of Yemen’s economy to contribute to peace efforts.
4. Use these fuller understandings to rebalance assistance to Yemen, with a shift from humanitarian towards development and peace-supporting aid.
Why energy security starts in the kitchen
With global energy markets reeling from geopolitical chaos, Indonesia’s USD 4.7 billion liquid petroleum gas subsidy is no longer just a fiscal burden but a severe economic vulnerability. In this blog (which was published as an Op-Ed for Jakarta Post), TPP Director Neil McCulloch argues that the government must finally grasp the nettle of subsidy reform.
The Political Economy of Gender and Energy
As part of the webinar series looking at different aspects of the energy transition from a political economy perspective, the ENERGIA international network on gender and sustainable energy hosted the third webinar on development partners' changed political priorities regarding gender and social inclusion (GESI) and the strategies that practitioners have used to embed GESI within national energy institutions.
The Political Economy of Carbon Pricing
As part of the webinar series looking at different aspects of the energy transition from a political economy perspective, the International Institute for Sustainable Development hosted the second webinar looking at why carbon pricing remains so politically difficult and what kinds of strategies have been most effective in different contexts.