Hundreds of children rally in front of a UN office in Sanaa on the World Children's Day, demanding help to end the war and lift the blockade imposed on Yemen. Mohammed Mohammed/ Press Association. All rights reserved.Yemenis, speaking to journalists and other camera-bearing strangers, like many others facing disaster and the collapse of the world around them from war or environmental catastrophes, often ask ‘where is the International Community? Why isn’t the world helping us?’ While it is difficult to completely grasp what people in extreme distress mean by the phrase, for many the ‘international community’ is embodied in the United Nations and its institutions, ranging from political entities, primarily the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to its more independent development and humanitarian assistance organisations such as the World Food Programme, UNICEF, WHO etc…. But the UN has lost considerable credibility in recent years and its reputation has suffered as a result of many failures. Yemen is a case in point.
The roots of UN involvement: 2011-14
In Yemen, unlike other countries of what was optimistically called the Arab Spring, the UN’s political institutions have been actively involved since 2011. The popular movement opposing the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh had its own specificities: unlike the situation in Tunisia where the army was weak and in Egypt where it supported ending Mubarak’s rule, in Yemen the military effectively split. With fairly evenly matched forces on either side, clashes in 2011 left the country on the verge of a civil war.[1]
From early 2010, with the creation of the Friends of Yemen, including all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, the main western States, the EU and the UN, a group of resident ambassadors met regularly in Sana’a to monitor and influence developments and in April 2011 the UN Secretary General appointed a Special Advisor on Yemen. This coincided with a fundamental change in the momentum of the popular uprisings, when military confrontations started. The international community, represented by these ambassadors, concluded that the Saleh regime was no longer viable and needed to be replaced by a regime which would both implement the neo-liberal economic agenda and focus on counter terrorism. Despite its claim of supporting a Yemeni-led process, UNSC Resolution 2014 gave little attention to the economic and social issues which were far more important for Yemenis.
