A busy week for the NDC

This past week, teams from the National Dialogue Conference’s Working Groups conducted field visits to Yemen’s Hadramout, Baidha, Jawf, Taiz, Ibb, Hodeida, Dhamar, Amran, and Amran governorates. Teams also made a number of field visits within the capital city of Sana’a.

During visits, teams visited local government and other public offices, private sector companies and civil society organizations. They also met with officials, youths and women’s group representatives, marginalized citizens and other societal segments.

Meanwhile, at the NDC’s main site, Sana’a’s Movenpick Hotel, working groups continued holding discussions and meetings on their respective agenda issues.

Among the past week’s key developments was the NDC Presidential Board’s decision to name two vice-chairpersons and a rapporteur for the Sa’ada Issue Working Group.

Various Ministers visited working groups and delivered lectures and presentations on key public issues such as general insecurity and targeted killings, fiscal policymaking, and sustainable development.

Also, foreign ambassadors and experts visited, heard and delivered lectures focused on the subjects of state-building, federalism, and the independence of public offices, among others, to particular working groups.

On Wednesday, a helicopter carrying NDC members was fired upon while traveling above the city of Rada’. No injuries were sustained and the teams continued their flight and visited the governorate. They traveled back to Sana’a on the same day.

NDC teams fan out across Yemen

All NDC working groups – with the exception of the Sa’ada and Southern Issue groups- sent committees or teams of members out on field visits during the past week.

The Southern Issue group postponed all visits until political party representatives had finished presenting their conceptions of the southern issue’s key components; meanwhile, the Sa’ada Issue Working Group members identified target areas and organizations and decided to begin making field visits next week.

NDC members visited key offices from various sectors – including those of educational institutions and human rights organizations, as well as seaports, fisheries, industry and trade centers, among others.

Members also conducted visits to the Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry, military camps and various key security service locations, including the headquarters for National Security and the Criminal Investigation Department.

During visits with security officials, discussions were based on steps made so far in restructuring the security services, the performance levels of individual security service institutions, and matters such as those of enforced disappearances and wrongful terminations.

The NDC teams requested that senior security officials and specialists prepare ‘visions’ of legislative and constitutional reforms which would ensure that all security service institutions would be built on national and professional bases.

During the past week, NDC Secretary General Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak reiterated that the aim of the field visits was not to investigate or find facts, but rather for NDC members to be acquainted with the situation and performance of all organizations through discussions about their needs and challenges.

A further aim of the field visits was to enable organizations, government offices, and citizens to convey their visions of Yemen’s future to NDC teams and committees. From there, points from the collected visions will potentially see inclusion in the draft of Yemen’s new constitution.

NDC members met with a variety of high-ranking government officials and discussed issues of performance, challenges and needs with them as part of efforts to develop recommendations which, in turn, would aim to improve relevant institutions’ general situations.

The members also met with representatives from political parties, civil society organizations, women, youths, NDC youth ambassadors and other societal segments, including marginalized dark-skinned citizens. During meetings with all of the above segments and others, visions, ideas and suggestions were solicited for possible inclusion in Yemen’s new constitution.

Furthermore, NDC members visited central prisons and met with citizens who had displaced as a result of war. The NDC teams acquainted themselves with the conditions of both prison inmates and those living at camps for the displaced and sought ways in which both general living situations could be improved.

In the capital city of Sana’a, NDC teams paid visits to a number of government institutions, including the Central Organization for Control and Auditing, the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendums, the Social Fund for Development, and the Human Rights, Planning, Finance and Agriculture Ministries, among others.

Secretariat General publishes community participation report

During the week, NDC Secretary General Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak delivered a presentation on the Secretariat General’s responsibilities, including making arrangements for field visits to various governorates.

He also received the NDC team which visited Baidha after the team’s helicopter had fired upon from ground level.

The Secretariat General also published a report on community contributions to NDC activities. The report stated that community contributions, which were read and recorded, included 223 contributions which arrived by email or via the NDC’s website - and 220 via social media websites. Yet more contributions were made by phone.

bin Mubarak received Russian Ambassador to Yemen Sergei Kozolov and the two discussed achievements made thus far by the NDC’s Working Groups.

He also met with Boris Ruge, Director for Near, Middle East and Maghreb Studies at the German Federal Foreign Office. Ruge spoke in support of NDC activities and said Germany was ready to provide needed technical assistance.

The Secretariat General organized a lecture by Muneer Fairuzi, International Finance Corportation Director for the Middle East and North Africa, on the subject of private and public sector partnerships in the education field. 

bin Mubarak also stated that Yemen had received a generous amount of aid, $5 million, for the NDC from Saudi Arabia.

Muhammad Al-Asaadi, Director of the NDC Media Committee, delivered a presentation to the State-Building Working Group on field visits, NDC priorities, interactions with the public and the media, technical and logistical challenges and expected NDC outcomes.

Protests:

NDC members staged demonstrations to demand a fairer system for handling academic nominations and also spoke out against general insecurity, violence and targeted killings.

Other NDC members spoke out against those who fired upon the helicopter which had been transporting NDC teams to Baidha governorate.

Member attendance:

The past week’s attendance rate for National Dialogue Conference members was 90%.