I understand your question.
In Yemen, there's a classic example of a catastrophe, in terms of monitoring and assessment. In places where we have the authority, the independence and the neutrality to operate, we can pretty much guarantee all of our food and assistance goes to the right people. One reason we use digitization and biometrics today is so we can assure taxpayers that their money is going to the intended beneficiaries. That's why monitoring and assessments are so important, which is why Yemen is such a disaster.
The Houthis have been a disaster to work with. It's the food diversion and not giving us the access we need for monitoring and assessment. This is one of the reasons we are pushing biometrics hard in Yemen right now. I don't want to say we're at a standstill, but the next few weeks are going to be critical as we negotiate this impasse. Why do you think they don't want us to have access? Why do you think they don't want us to have the assessment? Why do you think they don't want us to have the monitoring? It's because they're diverting food aid for a war effort or the underground economy. It's just deplorable what's taking place there.
We feed about 12.8 million out of the 29 million people there. It's all commodities. We've been moving cash into the government-controlled areas in the south using biometrics and digitization, but if we can get it into the Houthi-controlled areas.... The other 16 million people are buying in the commercial market, which is very difficult. They have very limited money and commodity prices have been going up and up. If we can bring in cash and know the cash is getting into the hands of the beneficiaries, it's putting liquidity into the market. Then the commodity pricing for those who we don't support will come down, which means we can benefit all the people.
Some of these Houthis and hardliners and Ansarullah don't care one single bit about their people. There are some Houthi leaders, though, who do. We are in a fight right now with regard to this issue. In fact, the United States is talking about suspending aid—not just food aid, but all aid—into Yemen until the Houthis agree to the basic fundamental humanitarian principles.
Quite frankly, if we can't push them forward to do the right thing, you could argue we're aiding and abetting in the violation of the most fundamental humanitarian principles.