Civil society’s diagnosis of the 2013 National Dialogue Conference (NDC) in Yemen: (why) did it fail?

This brief highlights selected findings from a study documenting the civil society perspective on the much-touted Yemeni national dialogue experience. Interviews were conducted with 50 CSOs covering all of the country’s governorates. Half of the consulted organisations were directly involved in the NDC, either as invited participant or in a supportive role. The other half concerns outside observers. The CSO view is contrasted with the international expert view, extracted from an extensive literature review. The NDC is also compared to earlier dialogues in the country as well as with recent national dialogue experiences elsewhere in the region. The Yemeni-Dutch research team conducted the interviews in Q4 of 2015 and Q1 of 2016, when war raged in many parts of the country and in the midst of the Saudi-Arabian led military intervention (Operation Decisive Storm).