2011: Humanitarian Aid to North Korea

Update on Humanitarian Aid to North Korea by Victor Hsu 15. November 2011

Regarding the humanitarian crisis in North Korea, there have been many requests from our concerned friends to have more information in detail. Here I am pleased to attach the article written by Dr. Victor Hsu who particiated in the Internatioal Conference on Humanitarian and Development Aid to North Korea in the beginning of November. As well, the UN situation report for Humanitarian Affairs on Food Insecurity in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is uploaded in our website (http://ecuforumkorea.org).

I hope that it will help you to understand the situation in North Korea and how much important our commitment and our every step to peace building in the Korean peninsula is. With best regard. Heawon Chae

Update on Humanitarian Aid to North Korea
by Dr. Victor Hsu
November 14, 2011

This past week I attended an International Conference on Humanitarian and Development Aid to North Korea jointly sponsored by the Korean Sharing Movement and Gyonggi Province and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. This is the 7th in a series of international events organized for the purpose of encouraging concerned people to continue to provide aid to North Korea on humanitarian grounds.

 

 

 

Attending the meeting is always nostalgic for me because I organized the very first one attended by over 150 international humanitarian practitioners in Beijing in 1998 and I participated in almost every one to be a keynote speaker or a panelist. This year I gave a presentation on the American Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) food aid experience in North Korea when they monitored US government food aid from July 2008 to March 2009.

This year’s event was very special because the former Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP) was a special guest. In 1996-1997, I worked with her to set up the Food Aid Liaison Group of the WFP in Pyongyang and the first head of FALU, Erich Weingartner, was also a participant at the conference. So it was a wonderful reunion for the three of us.

At the conference we learned that the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen in North Korea. We heard reports from the Country Director of the WFP in North Korea, a NGO representative from North Korea and an American NGO representative who headed a food assessment mission in North Korea this year. Together they presented a very serious picture of the worsening plight of the children and the people.

Among the information that I learned:

1. North Koreans, especially children, urgently need outside aid to fight terrible levels of malnutrition.

2. Six million North Koreans urgently need food aid.

3. Nearly half of North Korean children were chronically malnourished.

4. North Korea has a shortage of one million tons of food a year. Supply shortages means that daily per person rations from the public distribution system (PDS) were halved in July to 200 grams.

5. Rice yields are about 2.8 tonnes per hectare, about half that in most countries, with soil degradation, lack of fertilisers and limited mechanisation blamed.

6. The international community is not giving enough. The world must be reminded that the most vulnerable groups in North Korea are victims of a situation over which they have no control.

7. The US government asked US NGOs to send their own team in May ? to assess the humanitarian situation. But despite findings similar to those above, the USG has yet to announce a decision on aid. The five American NGOs recommended urgent shipments.

8. David Austin, North Korea program director for Mercy Corps, said the NGOssaw pockets of malnutrition “throughout the country” and that people there “are starving to death.”

9. The United States, along with other nations, made token contribution to flood assistance in mid- September. Washington provided a grant $900,000 in flood relief for the North through five US NGOs.

10. The position of South Korea remains that there is no nationwide food crisis of the kind that killed many thousands in the late 1990s.

11. In April, the United Nations appealed for $218 million in emergency aid. Only one-third of that amount has been pledged.

12. According to the head of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, who made her first visit in October, North Korea will continue to face food shortages unless its government addresses "major structural issues" and attracts investment. She also insisted that the responsibility for solving repeated food crises lay with the country's government and its need to tackle the underlying causes of poor agricultural production.

13. Ms. Amos painted a devastating portrait of a nation with chronic malnutrition problems that have stunted the growth of much of the population. In northern parts of the country as many as 45 per cent of children under age 5 are malnourished, while nationwide the figure is one third.

The resumption of talks between the USA and North Korea on October 24-25 in Geneva has given optimism to a resumption of humanitarian aid by the international community. In the 6-party talks, it was agreed in September 2005 that if North Korea would abandon its nuclear programs there would be economic assistance and diplomatic incentives from other parties to the six-party talks, which include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, and the United States.

In a meeting with the U.N. Secretary General in New York, on Monday November 4, South Korea's unification minister, Yu Woo-ik, said the ROK is consideringsending humanitarian aid to North Korea through third channels such as WFP.

The Unification Ministry says South Korea stopped sending direct aid to Pyongyang in November 2010 after it accused North Korea of shelling Yeonpyeong Island, killing four South Koreans. In the past, South Korea has sent aid through the WFP, the World Health Organization and other international agencies.

 


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National Council of Churches in Korea

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