IMF urges Yemen to help itself

Yemen needs to do more at home to support its political transformation because donor support is slow to develop, the International Monetary Fund said. Yemeni President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi took power in 2012 after longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in the wake of the Middle East and North African upheavals known as the Arab Spring. Khaled Sakr, IMF adviser for the Middle East and Central Asia, said Yemen needs to take responsibility for its own transformation. "This country ought to help itself first because donor aid usually flows gradually and in some cases it passes in a complex process including conditions by some donors to release aid," he said. The IMF said Yemen was one of the first Arab countries to get an injection of $94 million in rapid assistance following the Arab Spring. Saba reports Yemen's economy grew 2.4 percent last year after shrinking by more than 12 percent the previous year