Yemen's Foreign Minister Seeks Wider JICA Role in Talks with Japan's Ambassador

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Yemen’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Dr Afrah al-Zouba, met Japan’s ambassador to Yemen, Yoichi Nakashima, on Sunday for talks on bilateral relations and on expanding Japanese involvement in Yemen’s development and reconstruction. The meeting was reported by the state news agency Saba, which said the two sides reviewed cooperation across a range of sectors and discussed the latest developments in the country.

Al-Zouba opened by conveying condolences to the government and people of Japan over the earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture in late July. The magnitude 6.8 quake hit southern Japan on 28 July at a shallow depth of about ten kilometres, killing dozens of people and injuring many more. Roughly 300,000 residents of the prefecture were directed to evacuation centres, fires broke out in Kumamoto city, and shoppers were trapped when part of a shopping mall collapsed. Japan’s foreign ministry has since acknowledged messages of sympathy received from governments around the world.

The condolences carry a particular resonance for Yemen, which has itself relied on international emergency assistance for the better part of a decade and where Japan has been a consistent contributor. Al-Zouba praised what she described as Japan’s longstanding support in development, institution-building, food security, health and education, and noted the development projects Tokyo finances through United Nations agencies. Much of Japan’s assistance to Yemen has been routed in that way, since the security situation has limited direct bilateral implementation on the ground.

The minister said the Yemeni government wants to broaden its partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the body that manages most of Japan’s technical and grant assistance overseas. Yemeni ministers have raised JICA cooperation repeatedly in recent months. The planning ministry has discussed technical and economic support with Ambassador Nakashima, including a proposed reconstruction workshop in Aden, and the interior ministry has met the ambassador and JICA’s director to discuss security-sector training and institutional support programmes.

Al-Zouba briefed the ambassador on the security picture, and in particular on the threat that attacks on merchant shipping pose to navigation in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Those waters carry a significant share of the container traffic and energy cargoes moving between Asia and Europe, and the diversion of vessels around southern Africa since attacks began has lengthened voyages and raised freight and insurance costs. For a trading economy such as Japan’s, the routing of that traffic is a direct commercial interest as well as a diplomatic one.

Japanese diplomats have also engaged the maritime file directly. Japan’s ambassador to Yemen has said publicly that Tokyo used its channels with Tehran to urge restraint on the Houthis over Red Sea escalation, an approach that reflects Japan’s long-standing preference for quiet diplomacy and its unusual position as a Group of Seven member that retains working relations with Iran.

According to the readout, the minister welcomed the formation of a Saudi-led multinational maritime coalition intended to improve security in the corridor. The government in Aden has consistently argued that naval escort arrangements treat the symptom rather than the cause, and that lasting security for shipping depends on restoring state authority on the Yemeni coast.

Ambassador Nakashima reaffirmed Japan’s commitment to continued economic, humanitarian and developmental assistance, the readout said. Japan has maintained diplomatic relations with Yemen throughout the conflict, though like most missions its embassy has operated from outside the country for extended periods.

The humanitarian context framing these discussions remains grave. United Nations estimates put the number of Yemenis in need of some form of assistance at more than 18 million, with several million displaced. Health services have been repeatedly overwhelmed by outbreaks of cholera and measles, and the country’s water and sanitation infrastructure has degraded badly after years of underinvestment and damage. Aid agencies have warned that appeals for Yemen have been only partly funded in recent years, forcing cuts to food rations and the suspension of some programmes.

Al-Zouba’s emphasis on state institutions reflects a wider argument the government has been making to donors. Officials contend that channelling assistance exclusively through international agencies meets immediate needs but leaves ministries, hospitals and local administrations progressively hollowed out, and that reconstruction will not be possible without functioning Yemeni institutions to carry it. Donors, for their part, have cited concerns about capacity and oversight in explaining their reliance on multilateral channels.

The meeting was among the early engagements of al-Zouba’s tenure. She was appointed foreign minister on 23 July, becoming the first woman to hold the post in Yemen’s modern history, having joined the cabinet in February as minister of planning and international cooperation. Her background is in development and peacebuilding rather than career diplomacy: she served as first deputy secretary-general of the National Dialogue Conference between 2013 and 2015, advised the prime minister on humanitarian relief in 2019, and later headed the bureau set up to speed the absorption of foreign aid.

No comprehensive ceasefire has been in place since the United Nations-brokered truce of 2022 expired, and mediation efforts have not produced an agreed political framework. In that setting, meetings such as Sunday’s are less about breakthroughs than about keeping donor relationships warm and reconstruction planning alive for a moment when conditions allow it. Whether the discussion of an expanded JICA role produces specific projects will depend on Tokyo’s own budget cycle and on the security conditions Japanese implementing partners face on the ground.