ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a personal account of efforts to conduct development anthropology in the Yemen Arab Republic. The Yemeni revolution of September 1962, which ended the thousand-year rule of the Zaydi Imams, was a major historical turning point that terminated over a half century of isolationism. Agriculture, the principal productive sector in the Yemeni economy prior to the revolution, continues to account for 70 percent of employment. In Yemen's culturally diverse society, the urban population is rapidly expanding, but over 90 percent live in small-to-midsize villages. The need for help in implementing the large number of development programs in Yemen gave rise to a demand for persons with knowledge of the language and customs. Formation of the Central Planning Organization under the office of the prime minister led, in 1973, to the formulation of Yemen's first three-year national development plan, which emphasized the need for building infrastructure.
