Achieving the MDGs in Yemen : An Assessment

Al-Batuly, Abdulmajeed ; Al-Hawri, Mohamed ; Cicowiez, Martin ; Lofgren, Hans ; Pournik, Mohammad

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ADULT LITERACY;    ADVERSE EFFECTS;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION;    AGRICULTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6013
RP-ID  :  WPS6013

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Once the current political crisis inYemen has been resolved, it will be ever more urgent tospeed up progress, including Millennium Development Goal(MDG) achievements. Drawing on simulations with the Maquettefor MDG Simulations (MAMS), a model for strategy analysis,and a linked microsimulation model, this paper addressesYemen's MDG challenges. A first simulation setconsiders scaled-up government actions with the aim of fullyachieving the 2015 international MDG targets with requiredadditional financing from foreign or domestic sources. Themain finding is sobering but not surprising: given therequired expansion of MDG -- related services, on-timeachievement of key MDG targets does not appear to have beena realistic objective even if the government,hypothetically, would have expanded services with grant aidfinancing starting from 2005; macroeconomic stability,government efficiency, and the production of tradables wouldall have suffered due to the size of spending and aidincreases as well as the resulting real exchange rateappreciation. The results suggest that countries, instead ofrelying on international targets, should set MDG targetsgrounded in their own reality. In light of these results,the authors designed a second simulation set that is focusedon the remaining period up to 2015, and on what may befeasible once the current conflict has been settled. Thesimulations introduce moderate increases in foreign aid orgovernment allocative efficiency. The government uses theresulting fiscal space for spending and service expansion ininfrastructure and human development without losses inproductive efficiency. The results suggest that, under theseconditions, substantial improvements could still be achieved.