Yemen

Yemen: Economic Data Significantly Predates Current Conditions

Yemen's GDP was recorded at $21.61 billion in 2018, per World Bank WDI, with GDP per capita of $633.89, also 2018. Both figures are dated to 2018 and should be treated strictly as a snapshot from that year; they predate several years of subsequent developments and may not describe the economy today. Population, by contrast, is more current: 40,583,164 in 2024, per World Bank WDI.

Foreign reserves were $1.25 billion in 2022, per World Bank WDI — again, a figure several years old relative to this bundle's 2024–2025 entries elsewhere.

Defense spending is the most dated metric in this file: SIPRI's Military Expenditure Database puts milex at $1.71 billion and 3.967 percent of GDP for 2014, by SIPRI's own GDP series for that year. This is an eleven-year-old figure and should not be read as describing current Yemeni defense outlays; no more recent SIPRI milex figure is available in this bundle. The percentage should not be recalculated against the 2018 World Bank GDP figure above, as the two come from different series and years. The Correlates of War National Material Capabilities dataset recorded 40,000 active personnel and a Composite Index of National Capability score of 0.00237, both 2022.

No government-debt figure is present in this bundle for Yemen — a gap, not a zero.

V-Dem's 2025 release scores Yemen at 0.127 on electoral democracy, 0.043 on liberal democracy, and 0.065 on state capacity — all markedly low, and the most current figures in this file.

Data gaps

This is one of the more data-constrained bundles among the countries reviewed. The GDP series (2018) and milex series (2014) are both dated well before the governance and population figures (2024–2025), and government debt is absent entirely. Energy figures are mixed: primary energy consumption (0.1242 exajoules, 2023) and electricity generation (5.25 terawatt-hours, 2024) are reasonably current per Our World in Data, and oil production (20.718 terawatt-hours, 2024) is current too, but gas production (5.475 terawatt-hours) is dated to 2016. Given the age of the GDP and milex series in particular, none of the economic or defense figures above should be assumed to describe Yemen's current conditions.

Sources: World Bank WDI, SIPRI Milex, Correlates of War National Material Capabilities, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).