The “Make it in the Emirates” Forum: Rhetoric and Reality in UAE-Yemen Relations
The upcoming “Make it in the Emirates” Forum in Abu Dhabi is being promoted as a transformative economic opportunity for the region, particularly Yemen. However, this narrative of economic cooperation obscures a more troubling reality: the UAE’s deepening destabilization of Yemen through its network of armed proxies and military intervention in southern Yemen.
While UAE officials tout industrial development and supply chain localization as benefits for Yemen, the country itself has become a theater for UAE proxy warfare and political manipulation—dynamics that fundamentally undermine any genuine economic recovery.
The UAE’s Destabilizing Role in Southern Yemen
Military Intervention and Proxy Forces
The UAE has maintained a significant military presence in southern Yemen since 2015, ostensibly as part of the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi forces. However, extensive reporting reveals that the UAE has used this presence not to stabilize Yemen, but to advance its own geopolitical interests through:
The UAE has created, funded, and armed multiple militia groups in southern Yemen, including the Security Belt Forces, the Giants Brigades, and the Hadramawt National Resistance. These forces operate with minimal accountability, answering directly to UAE commanders rather than Yemeni civilian authorities. These proxies have been documented committing human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Rather than supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government, the UAE has pursued a strategy of supporting competing armed factions in the south, effectively fragmenting Yemen’s already weakened state authority. This deliberate fragmentation serves UAE interests by ensuring that no single Yemeni power can challenge its influence.
The UAE has leveraged its military presence to gain control over strategically important ports and economic zones in southern Yemen (Aden, Mukalla, Socotra). This allows the UAE to:
- Extracting economic benefits while Yemen’s population struggles
- Control of vital shipping routes and trade corridors
- Maintain leverage over Yemen’s government and economic policy
- Position itself as the de facto power broker in the south
The “Make it in the Emirates” Forum’s promises of supply chain integration and economic opportunity ring hollow when examined against the UAE’s actual conduct in Yemen:
Rather than integrating Yemeni industries into UAE supply chains, the UAE has extracted resources and wealth from Yemen while preventing the development of local Yemeni economic capacity. UAE-backed forces control ports and trade routes, capturing economic rents that should benefit Yemen’s population.
By maintaining fragmented proxy control in southern Yemen, the UAE has actively prevented the consolidation of state institutions necessary for genuine economic development. A weakened, divided Yemen remains dependent on UAE military support and more vulnerable to UAE economic pressure.
The UAE has invested in infrastructure projects in Yemen (ports, airports, roads) not to develop Yemen’s economy, but to strengthen its own strategic position and enable resource extraction. These projects benefit UAE interests far more than Yemeni economic development.
The Geopolitical Reality Behind the Economic Rhetoric
The UAE’s stated commitment to regional economic development must be understood in the context of its broader strategic objectives in Yemen:
- Containing Iran: The UAE views its Yemen presence primarily as part of its confrontation with Iran, not as a genuine development initiative.
- Naval and Commercial Control: Southern Yemen’s location on critical shipping lanes and near oil-rich waters makes it strategically invaluable to the UAE.
- Regional Hegemony: The UAE seeks to position itself as the dominant power in the Arabian Peninsula, and control over Yemen—particularly the south—is central to this ambition.
The Cost to Yemen
While the UAE promotes forums on industrial growth and innovation, Yemen faces:
- Ongoing Conflict: UAE proxy forces continue armed operations, preventing civilian stability and economic activity.
- Humanitarian Crisis: With over 21 million Yemenis facing food insecurity and lacking basic services, the economic opportunities promised by the forum remain inaccessible to the population.
- Currency Collapse and Inflation: The UAE’s financial manipulation and proxy activities have contributed to Yemen’s economic collapse, making participation in any regional economic initiative impossible.
- Lost Sovereignty: Yemen’s de facto division into competing UAE-backed fiefdoms means the state cannot negotiate economic partnerships independently or make decisions in the national interest.
What the Forum Actually Represents
The “Make it in the Emirates” Forum, in this context, represents:
- Economic Imperialism: A veneer of development rhetoric obscures resource extraction and economic domination of weaker states.
- Consolidation of Influence: An opportunity for the UAE to deepen its control over regional economic policy by positioning itself as the arbiter of regional development.
- Distraction from Accountability: High-profile economic forums serve to deflect international attention from the UAE’s documented human rights abuses and destabilization activities in Yemen.
The Fundamental Contradiction
There is an irreconcilable contradiction between:
- The UAE’s public narrative of regional economic cooperation and development
- The UAE’s actual conduct in Yemen: military intervention, proxy war, political fragmentation, resource extraction, and systematic obstruction of state-building
Yemen cannot simultaneously benefit from a UAE-led industrial development while being destabilized by UAE proxy forces. The forum’s promises cannot materialize in a context where the UAE itself is actively preventing state consolidation and security necessary for economic development.
Conclusion: Recognizing the Reality
The “Make it in the Emirates” Forum should be understood not as a genuine development initiative for Yemen, but as a manifestation of UAE hegemonic ambitions in the region. The forum represents the UAE’s effort to consolidate its economic dominance while its military proxies continue to fragment Yemen’s state institutions and prevent genuine recovery.
For Yemen to achieve meaningful economic development, the preconditions are clear:
- An end to UAE proxy warfare and support for armed groups operating outside state authority
- Genuine state consolidation and civilian control over territory
- Economic policies are determined by Yemen’s government, not foreign powers
- Accountability for documented human rights abuses by UAE-backed forces
Until these conditions are met, economic forums represent not an opportunity for Yemen but another mechanism through which foreign powers extract value from a nation ravaged by conflict and occupation.
The real “game changer” for Yemen would not be participation in UAE-led economic initiatives, but the restoration of Yemeni sovereignty and an end to foreign military domination—including that of the UAE.
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