The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies and Oxford Research Group (ORG) are leading a year-long pilot project to build local capacity for inclusive strategic thinking and dialogue in two of Yemen’s most stable governorates, Marib and Hadramawt. The project rethinks long-held assumptions about the form that the peace process should take. Instead of resorting to top-down centralized frameworks with regards to peace-making efforts, the project seeks to identify otherwise underrepresented parties for inclusion in any renewed and potentially restructured peace process. By training local actors in Marib and Hadramawt in the ORG-pioneered collective strategic thinking model, the project creates space for them to define their core needs within the governorates and requirements for investing in the peace process.
This project seeks to achieve greater understanding of local dynamics in order to better address the impacts and implications of the conflict. It also aims to provide platforms for easing tensions and frustrations among groups of common interest at the local level in Yemen, and to build capacity for local communities to enable them to fully participate in the democratic development of Yemen. Moreover, it pursues the strengthening of the United Nations-led peace process and other international peace-building efforts, as well as the prospects of peaceful transition following any peace agreement in Yemen.
In 2018, the Sana’a Center developed a list of influential, well-connected partisan and non-partisan figures with a unique understanding of how things are run in Marib. From this list, participants were selected to join a series of three workshops in Jordan, which took place between May 2018 and February 2019. These workshops brought to light key issues, identified local groups that need to be engaged, and explored appropriate methodologies for addressing these key issues. The workshops brought together locally based and diaspora Yemeni leaders, including leaders of political parties, tribal and social leaders, senior local authority representatives, academics, business professionals, civil society activists, prominent women, and religious representatives.
These regional workshops were followed by a workshop held in the city of Marib. This workshop allowed participants from the Amman workshops to engage with other local stakeholders inside Marib: civil society organizations, youth, and women, as well as local authorities. This workshop provided a space for issues identified in the Amman workshops to be discussed in more detail. They helped foster strategic thinking capacities and cohesion within the separate groups, while also developing investment in the broader political process by allowing the groups to give voice to the issues they most wanted to see addressed.