FT - By Roula Khalaf

When experts gather to talk about the future of the Middle East, the outlook is often bleak. When Yemen is the topic, the future can look apocalyptic.

There has been plenty of debate about Yemen recently. The country shot up the global security agenda after its al-Qaeda branch claimed responsibility for the botched attempt at Christmas to blow up a transatlantic passenger aircraft over the US. On Saturday, in the latest in a series of outrages, suspected al-Qaeda militants killed 11 people in an attack on a police headquarters in the southern port of Aden.

Many of the conferences and seminars on the Arab world’s poorest state probably reach the same conclusion as the one I recently attended: that Yemen is likely to remain a basket case for a very long time.

It is not only that economic and social indicators are disastrous. Yes, there is rampant unemployment, alarming malnutrition rates, high population growth and fast depleting oil and water resources. But the politics – and the crisis of governance – are even more problematic.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978, has ruled over a fragile state by buying friends and keeping enemies at bay. But faced with severe financial strains at a time when crises have multiplied – an insurgency by the Houthi Shia in the north, a separatist movement in the south, an al-Qaeda security threat – he has lost his touch.

He suppresses one conflict only to be faced with another: the war with the Houthis was declared over in March but now separatist tensions in the south have been brewing again for weeks. Moreover, Mr Saleh is increasingly seen as the main problem in Yemen: a leader with bankrupt policies who is relying more and more on family members and tribesmen; a president who seems incapable of the inclusiveness that could tame disaffected Yemenis or extend the state’s security reach across the territory.

Yet there is no prospect of an end to the Saleh presidency. In any case, he is grooming his son to succeed him. Not surprisingly, much of the world is looking to the Gulf Co-operation Council – which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – to look after Yemen. While the US provides security assistance, and appears most concerned by the al-Qaeda presence, it has been left to the GCC to come up with much of the funding and the will to prevent a further slide into chaos.

Realistically, though, there is no hope that the GCC will influence Yemen’s politics in a significant way. The main power in the group, Saudi Arabia, feels threatened by Yemen’s troubles, particularly as some of its own al-Qaeda members were chased out of the kingdom only to land across the border.

But even if they have misgivings about Mr Saleh, the Saudis’ answer has been to prop him up, rather than find an alternative. Riyadh intervened in the conflict with the Houthis and it also bankrolled the government last year, providing some $2bn.

The GCC has shrugged off western suggestions that it should integrate Yemen. Gulf officials produce several excuses, ranging from Yemen’s very different economic structure to the fact that, unlike its peers, it is not a monarchy. Kuwait, meanwhile, has yet to forgive Yemen for having sided with Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war, an ill-fated decision that is now recognised as one of Sana’a’s gravest mistakes.

But there are measures short of membership that the GCC could adopt to provide temporary relief to Yemen. Among the workable ideas I have heard is an opening up to Yemenis of Gulf labour markets, which rely heavily on expatriate workers (most Yemenis were kicked out in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait).

Gulf neighbours must also find a way to disburse their share of the $4.7bn financial assistance pledged in 2006 but still unspent, in part because of a lack of transparency and absorption capacity. There is talk of establishing offices to monitor disbursement and projects.

These are small steps, to be sure, but they could at least help delay Yemen’s decline.