Two recent papers on the DPRK
International Federation of the Red Cross
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea MAAKP002
30 April 2011
The IFRC supports the DPRK Red Cross in four areas: health and care, water and sanitation, disaster management, and organizational development. The provision of essential drugs to 2,030 clinics nationwide remains the largest component of Federation support. At the same time, the health and care programme has successfully piloted the community-based health and first aid (CBHFA) programme in two counties. Within the water and sanitation programme, the ongoing construction of 19 water and sanitation systems will bring the total number of people supplied with clean drinking water in the past ten years to over 600,000.
Western Aid: The Missing Link for North Korea’s Economic Revival?
AEI Working Paper
Nicholas Eberstadt
[T]his past January, for the first time in over two decades, Pyongyang has formally unveiled a new multi-year economic plan: a 10-year “strategy plan for economic development” under a newly formed State General Bureau for Economic Development. The new economic plan is intended not only to meet the DPRK’s longstanding objective of becoming a “powerful and prosperous country” [Kangsong Taeguk] by 2012 (the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung), but also to promote North Korea to the ranks of the “advanced countries in 2020.”
Details on the new 10-year economic plan are as yet sketchy. South Korean analysts report that the plan envisions massive amounts of new investment in North Korea: up to $100 billion, by some accounts.3 But even if the investment target is more modest than such rumors suggest, North Korea will be counting on more than just domestic capital accumulation to secure this funding. It will have to rely upon major inflows of both foreign private capital–and foreign aid.
*Both reports have been added to the DPRK Economic Statistics Page.
