This family in Yemen’s Mawza District received vouchers to buy food as part of Mercy Corps’ emergency response to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. Photograph by Cassandra Nelson / Mercy Corps.

In their Sept. 25 op-ed they write:

“Simply increasing short-term relief aid — although an important stopgap measure — is not a durable solution. What Yemen needs are simultaneous initiatives to build a more dynamic private sector, while supporting market development, job training, and youth employment programs to address systemic issues.

“In other parts of the world — notably the nearby Horn of Africa — the United States Agency for International Development is piloting a ‘resilience’ approach to aid. That multi-pronged approach addresses immediate needs while also focusing on the underlying factors that make a population vulnerable to recurring humanitarian crises.”

Diener, a magna cum laude graduate in political science who earned a master’s at Georgetown, is a senior policy adviser on the Middle East with Mercy Corps. She reports that her editor at The Christian Science Monitor was a fellow alumna: Cricket Alioto Fuller ’05.

• View op-ed from The Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 25, 2012