World Bank regional development expert:
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Julie G. Viloria-Williams has over 25 years of experience with the World Bank in sustainable people-based development. She held positions in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Eastern and Central Asian countries before becoming the Middle East and North Africa regional expert in September last year. She is the team leader in the Qat dialogue task in Yemen, which represents the World Bank’s assistance to Yemen in dealing with this issue. Her job involves research into the issues and development needs of countries within the MENA region, and identification of potential threats, especially on the issues that affect the livelihood of citizens.
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"Because of the urgency of the Qat problem in Yemen, it has become the World Bank's fourth pillar in the bank's new country assistance strategy along with growth, governance and the Millenium Development Goals,” she said. Based on the December country assistance strategy consultation, the World Bank's assistance to Yemen will take the form of grants, rather than loans, to be provided over the next three years.During her recent visit to Yemen, Viloria-Williams met with the various stakeholders and discussed with them the issue of Qat. She also attended some focus groups, during which she realized just how deep the problem is.
"In many families children as young as seven start chewing because of parental influence, especially because mothers, who are usually uneducated, think of Qat as means to bind their children to the family," she said.
As a part of its campaign against Qat, the WB will be producing a documentary on Qat in Yemen, in both Arabic and English, she anticipates that it will be broadcast on Yemeni TV among other media channels in a bid to spread awareness.
Size of the problem
According to a detailed survey carried out by the World Bank in mid 2006, 72 percent of men and 33 percent of women chew Qat for an average of 6 hours per day. Qat absorbs 10 percent of the average household income and over 28 percent for low income groups. Qat production, trade and consumption accounts for 10 percent of GDP, and is the cause of many health problems. The study sampled more than four thousand Yemenis from around the Republic.
"High blood pressure, tooth decay, constipation, hemorrhoids, hernias, paranoia and depression are among the direct health hazards posed by regular Qat chewing," said Viloria-Williams. Other health issues come as indirect effects, such as malnutrition and food insecurity, when low income families prioritize the purchase of Qat over that of food. Cancer and liver cirrhosis are also common, due to consumption of Qat exposed to pesticide residues and toxic chemicals.
The consumption pattern is increasing by 10 percent every year and this means the numbers revealed by the study in 2006 are very likely to have increased by 20 percent. Despite this, over 50 percent of the men and 60 percent of the women interviewed admitted that Qat represents and problematic habit, and that the government should limit it.
In addition to the health problems, Qat production consumes inordinate amount of water and heavy use of pesticides. This water and land use reduces that available for production of food and export crops.
Lessons from other countries
The World Bank has done some research into the Somali experience of the production and consumption of Qat, although the phenomenon there is not as wide spread as it is in Yemen. Viloria-Williams has argued that the Qat industry must be very organized and sophisticated in order to thrive as well as it does.
"The Qat value-chain in Somalia is very strong and there are many stakeholders involved in the process, whether as suppliers or consumers. One possible method worth trying would be for the government to compensate the Qat farmers and dealers. In Yemen there are many families dependant on the Qat industry, and if the government wants to limit Qat, it should give them alternatives," she said.
Another mechanism for limiting Qat in Yemen could be through increasing taxation and imposing strict regulation
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Although importing Qat is not strictly forbidden, it is not typically carried out. The price of Qat in Yemen is almost five times higher than that in Ethiopia, the major world producer and exporter of Qat, and according to the Ministry of Agriculture, if Yemen decides to import 156,290 tons of Qat annually, it can save as much as 837 million cubic meters of water at a cost of USD 1.8 per cubic meter of water. However, while this policy could improve the availability of water and land, it may stimulate the consumption of Qat.
Why tackling the Qat issue is an urgent matter
According to Viloria-Williams the increasing production and consumption of Qat will lead to an environmental and economic disaster.
"If nothing is done, and Yemenis keep on chewing and planting Qat, they will exhaust the water supply at a time when every man, woman and child is addicted, and then the whole society will collapse," she said.
Viloria-Williams was not exaggerating. She had seen similar conditions when the society gets addicted to a non sustainable item. Because of the paucity of resources in Yemen, especially water, there will eventually be a major problem directly affecting the Qat industry. It will simply mean higher prices, greedy producers and frantic consumers in five years or so. The health and productivity of the people would disappear and their social structure would be disturbed.
There will be food insecurity, increasing malnutrition, diseases and even an increase in crime rate, especially among the younger generation.
"I visited some of the inmates in the Juvenile prison. Around 95 percent of the reason behind their dangerous way of life is Qat. They needed to buy Qat and could not afford it so they turned to crime. Moreover, 60 to 75 percent of cases are caused by neglect and abuse in the family, because the parents or guardians are themselves addicted to Qat.
What needs to be done, according to the expert, is mitigate the impact of Qat immediately, and limit its spread.
"Provide alternatives," she said, as she illustrated a parallel with avian flu, where governments could not control the spread of the flue because they did not provide compensation or alternatives for the farmers who were supposed to kill their live stock.
Start with the basic pillars of development, such as education, health care and youth development. On a national level there has to be a master plan in which various stakeholders, such as the Ministry of Water, Agriculture, Labor, Youth and Sports, Education, Health, Trade, etc., come together and contribute their share to the remedies.
The reason why previous efforts to eliminate the Qat problem have failed is because the public sector and civil society were not organized and the effort did not include all stake holders. It is critical that civil society steps in and takes the lead in social changes.
"We need a group of community leaders and activists who will be the champions of an attitude change in Yemeni society," said Viloria-Williams.
She explained that this is a good time for Yemen because the effort can be aided the decentralization strategy and the growing strength of the local councils.
She predicted that the local communities could come together and work out a program to help young people find productive alternatives to Qat chewing, and discover how to empower the whole society to eliminate this habit.