The Yemen Polling Center (YPC) in collaboration with the security authorities in Taiz and with the support of the European Union organized on June 24, 2019, at its headquarters a workshop entitled “For a Safer City”.
Taiz has been making steady progress in re-establishing security and setting up state institutions. According to YPC research, state security providers are slowly developing towards becoming the main security provider yet again. With this workshop, YPC wants to contribute to the improvement of local security, by establishing a platform that will allow security providers – both formal and informal – to start a conversation about cooperation.
The workshop was attended by representatives of the army and security establishment, representatives of the local authority, judiciary and neighborhood authorities. The goal of the workshop was to better understand threats to local security and identify the needs of security authorities to better address such threats. The meeting laid the foundation for better cooperation between security providers in the future.
The workshop was initiated by films from the Badihi campaign that showed the cultural treasures of Yemen, and the human suffering across the country, regardless of political affiliation. The participants were given the opportunity to comment on the film before YPC Vice-President Kamal Moqbil opened the workshop activities with a summary of the overall project. The workshop is part of the project “Re-building Peace and Security in Yemen” implemented by YPC support of the European Union’s Instrument Contributing to Stability and Peace (ICSP).
Moqbil said that this workshop is part of YPC’s constant efforts to address all issues that affect the living conditions of the Yemeni people everywhere in the country, but Taiz in particular and to call attention to them through independent and rigorous research methodology. The workshop was moderated by Maged al-Kholidy, YPC Associate Fellow and leading member of the Organizations Youth Without Borders.
Several topics were discussed during the workshop, which had 2 sessions. The first session of the workshop was devoted to discussing the effects and causes of security threats. In the second session, participants discussed the security providers in Taiz; capacities, authorities, needs and challenges, in addition to the form and mechanisms of cooperation. The workshop was closed by collecting and reviewing participants recommendations.
The meeting will be repeated in July to deepen cooperation between the security providers.
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References :
[1]YPC nationwide representative survey, April–July 2019. Data cited in this paper is drawn from this survey unless otherwise indicated.
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[11]CIVIC, “We Did Not Know If We Would Die From Bullets Or Hunger” Civilian Harm and Local Protection Measures in Yemen “, Jan 2019, https://civiliansinconflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/YEMEN_BulletsorHunger_FINAL_PROOF.pdf (Accessed 5 March 2020).
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[13] Human Rights Watch, “Yemen: Riyadh Agreement Ignores Rights Abuses”, December 2019, https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/12/yemen-riyadh-agreement-ignores-rights-abuses Accessed 5 Mar 2020; Human Rights Watch, “Yemen: UAE Backs Abusive Local Forces” June 2017.