Realizing MDGs in Yemen needs $48.4 bln program: report

SANA'A, Feb. 27 (Saba) - A report revealed on Saturday that realizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Yemen
needs carrying out a rehabilitation program worth $48.4 billion.

The report was prepared by the Yemeni government and UN organizations and presented
to the meeting of the working group of Yemen and donors in charge of identifying
Yemen's
development needs and follow up projects' implementation being held currently in the
Saudi capital, Riyadh.
The report showed that the $48.4 billion rehabilitation program is to be
implemented in ten years in sectors of education, health, agriculture, fish, roads,
electricity,
water and sanitation.
In spite of confirming a progress in Yemen's indicators in achieving educational
and health MDGs in the last years, the report emphasized that the economic growth
in Yemen
must create job opportunities and decrease unemployment rates through propping up
small and micro-enterprises in the promising sectors and intensifying efforts to
achieve
MDGs by 2015.
It showed that the most significant challenges hindering Yemen from realizing the
MDGs are the difference in poverty levels between rural and modern areas, child
malnutrition,
gender educational gap and high maternal mortality rates.
The future reform priorities will focus on enhancing state institutional
construction, triggering the banking sector to take part in development process,
improving investment
environment, particularly in infrastructure areas, widening reforms in human
resources in educational and health sectors, upgrading legislations aiming to
strengthen public
and private sectors' partnership and broadening development opportunities in rural
and distant areas.
The reform priorities will also concentrate on women empowerment, economy
integration between Yemen and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)'s states and advancing
non-oil sector
performance, , according to the report.
AF/AF