US report: Are the Houthis exploiting humanitarian aid efforts allocated to Yemenis to support their military budget?

A US report hinted at the possibility that the Houthis are exploiting the massive international humanitarian aid efforts allocated to help Yemenis to support the group’s military budget, considering that the fundamental problem related to providing aid in Yemen – the lack of transparency and oversight – remains unaddressed.

A report by the American website Counter Extremism Project asked how an organization like the Houthis, which rules over 20 million Yemenis with a per capita GDP of less than $500, could simultaneously purchase advanced long-range weapons that could cost millions of dollars per unit?

A major source of revenue for the Houthis, who prioritize their war machine over the well-being of the people under their rule, is the massive international humanitarian aid effort to help Yemenis. At $2 billion a year, international aid to Yemen is likely to account for more than 10 percent of Yemen’s $17 billion annual GDP (including areas controlled by the Houthis and those controlled by the internationally recognized Yemeni government as of 2024).

Nearly three-quarters of this amount is directed to areas controlled by the Houthis, in proportion to the percentage of the Yemeni population living under their control.

But according to the report, the lack of transparency and adequate oversight by humanitarian aid organizations means that there is little, if any, reliable information indicating that aid is reaching Yemen’s most needy. Meanwhile, the Houthi regime is doing everything it can to monitor, control, disrupt, and divert aid projects to line the pockets of regime officials and fund its own operations.

Although a few senior Houthi officials have been sanctioned for terrorizing aid workers and extorting humanitarian aid organizations, the fundamental problem with aid delivery in Yemen—the lack of transparency and oversight—remains unaddressed.

The report went on to say that some of the money collected by humanitarian organizations actually supports Houthi attacks on donor countries. For example, the United States spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to support the activities of the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations. However, in their annual reports and audits, some of these same organizations downplay the fact that their evaluation and monitoring mechanisms for delivering aid in Yemen are largely dysfunctional.

This means in practice that most (if not all) humanitarian organizations operating in Yemen cannot provide estimates of how much aid has been diverted by the Houthi group.

While some may argue that it would be difficult to redirect aid to fund the Houthi cause, the report stresses the importance of noting that the vast majority of aid in Yemen takes the form of unconditional resource transfers. Resource transfers are intended to provide cash or necessities to Yemenis on the brink of disaster but are also at high risk of being redirected toward Houthi goals, as cash can be used directly and necessities can be easily and quietly sold to generate cash. These fungible assets constitute the majority of aid to Yemen.

But the report asks how can we ensure that taxpayer dollars from citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany do not support the increasingly dangerous Houthi weapons program?

The answer to this question, according to the report, lies in greater transparency on the part of the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations regarding the problem of aid diversion in Yemen.

He pointed out that if humanitarian organizations are unable or unwilling to provide relevant information, donor countries should reconsider whether their money is causing more harm than good when it flows out of sight to Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen.