Moreover, Yemen has the world's fourth fastest growing population
(3.0% in 2013) [35] and the corresponding increase in unemployment
rates (17.8% in 2010; 29% in 2012) [36] will pose more threats to
the already overexploited fishery resources and will cause further
damage to the important coastal habitats. A national assessment
carried out by the United Nations Development Program in 2010 to
assess progress in Yemen toward achieving Millennium Development
Goals found that Yemen is unlikely to achieve most of the Goals by
2015 due to chronic underdevelopment, security problems, and a lack
of financial resources [33].
Recently, a new national fisheries strategy (2012–2025) has been
formulated and has identified fisheries as a potential sector to food
security and to create more employment opportunities [30]. The
strategy has identified short-term, mid-term, and long-term objectives
and a timeframe to achieve these objectives. This strategy and
its announced objectives acknowledge the major uncertainty of the
sector, in which production estimates are highly uncertain and the
stock status of most species is unknown. However, the strategy did
not prioritize objectives nor did it introduce practical solutions to the
major obstacles encountered in the sector, particularly the poor
governance and uncertainty of the overall performance of the sector.
90 N. Alabsi, T. Komatsu / Marine Policy 50 (2014) 89–95
Moreover, the strategy did not account for the high vulnerability and
low resilience inherent in fisheries resources in general.