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North Korea Lacking a Million Ton of Food…Inflated Figures?

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
3/28/2007

The World Food Programme (WFP) revealed that North Korea had for the first time admitted that they were lacking a million ton of food.

Recently, Tony Banbury, WFP Asia Director spent 3 days on location with officials from the North Korean Agriculture Ministry and Foreign Ministry where the food situation was discussed.

On the 26th, Banbury told Reuters, “This is a very significant development that they themselves are confirming they have a gap of 1mn tones.”

Director Banbury informed that the WFP and other sources had provided for North Korea’s food variance which equated to about 20% of the nations needs, however that these sources had already been wasted.

Disputably, these figures made by Mr. Banbury do not correspond to the figures on North Korea’s crop yields. Some even criticize that it was inappropriate of the WFP to directly quote comments made by North Korean officials.

According to a source by the DailyNK, the cost of rice has remained at 800~900 won(US$0.25~0.29). Especially with the forthcoming cyclic hardships of spring harvest, these figures suggest that market costs are actually stabilizing.

Since the breakdown of the distribution system, many North Koreans have resorted to purchasing rice at the markets. In North Korea, the cost of rice is a good representation of market conditions, and considering that rice prices are showing constancy is evidence that there have not been drastic setbacks as a result of the rice distributions.

In comparison to last year where flooding made the food crisis chronic in various districts throughout North Korea, the situation hasn’t really deteriorated. Rather, the continuous inflow of food and hence trade from China has helped maintain market prices, North Korea-China tradesmen say.

Earlier this year, the Rural Development Administration in South Korea estimated North Korea’s food production to be 4.3mn tons. Evidence from a defector who once worked at North Korea’s food distribution ministry and past analysis on crop production suggests that North Korea would not have incurred a food crisis in the case it had produced more than 4mn tons of output.

Simply put, 4.3mn tons of production is at the least enough to maintain the lives of North Korean citizens. Undoubtedly, in a society like North Korea, this figure could initiate a food crisis and starvation in the lower class. However, inflating the shortage of food may only cause exhaustion of essential aid.

In addition, some argue that international organizations are actually provoking this vicious cycle in North Korea by decreasing the real amount of food produce.

Recently, North Korean analyst Marcus Noland published a report, ‘Famine in North Korea’ where he argued that about 50% of international food aid was being consumed by the military and, or the elite class.

In the report, he said, “The North Korean government consistently sought to frustrate transparent, effective humanitarian relief” and that, “Diversion is almost certainly occurring on a large scale, enough food to feed between 3 to 10 percent or more of the North Korean populace. Some of this aid is almost surely consumed by politically connected groups, including the military.”

Posted in Economic reform, Foreign aid statistics, General markets (FMR: Farmers Market), International Aid, Price liberalization, UN, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Author sees North Korea as reluctant to reform

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Reuters
Paul Eckert
3/23/2007

The diplomatic deal that promises to bring North Korea aid in exchange for scrapping its nuclear weapon programs might allow the government to resist meaningful economic changes, an expert on the secretive communist country’s economy said on Friday.

Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute, a Washington economic think tank, said research for his new book on North Korea’s deadly 1990s famine showed Pyongyang was “at best, ambivalent” about changing policies that led to that disaster.

“The great hope is that reassurances in terms of external security will give the North Korean regime the political room to engage in greater political and economic liberalization at home,” the economist told Reuters in an interview.

But the diplomacy playing out in Beijing could have the opposite effect, said Noland, co-author of “Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform” with Stephen Haggard of the University of California, San Diego.

“It could well be that a nuclear deal that resulted in greater amounts of aid would actually allow the North Korean government to intensify activities that are essentially reestablishing economic and political control over the population,” he said.

Negotiators from North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia were in Beijing this week, seeking to begin implementing a Feb. 13 deal that would give the North aid and security assurances in return for shutting down a nuclear reactor and preparing other disarmament steps.

Noland’s 368-page study of the famine that killed an estimated 1 million North Koreans in the late 1990s shows how the rigid central planners of Pyongyang were forced to allow markets to feed people and to give farmers some limited freedoms, but then pulled back when the disaster eased.

“When things look better … the North Korean government tries to pull back on this process of marketization and reform,” Noland said.

“One of the saddest things is that as food aid began arriving in North Korea, the regime systematically cut the amount of food it bought on commercial terms,” he said.

The author of three books on North Korea decries what he says are “truly reckless” food policies since the end of the famine. Pyongyang has banned trading in grain on markets that people rely upon for food, confiscated grain in rural areas and reneged on policy promises to farmers, he said.

“In a variety of ways, it seems to want to put the genie back in the bottle,” he said.

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture statistics, International Aid, Political economy, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

North Korea facing 1 milion tonne food shortage-WFP

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Reuters
Lindsay Beck
3/26/2007

North Korea has admitted for the first time to food shortages of a million tonnes, the World Food Programme said on Monday, adding that in the absence of better donor support, millions are vulnerable to hunger.

In the past that food gap — which represents about 20 percent of North Korea’s needs — was met by a combination of bilateral aid, WFP support, loans and commercial interests, but those sources are all drying up, the WFP said.

“This is a very significant development that they themselves are confirming they have a gap of 1 million tonnes,” WFP Asia director Tony Banbury told Reuters.

The figure, which is in line with U.N. estimates, was given in a meeting with the vice-minister of agriculture, Banbury said in an interview from North Korea, where he met officials at the Agriculture Ministry and Foreign Ministry and spent three days in the field.

“There is a real food security problem in the country that is now not being met either by domestic production or external sources.”

North Korea suffered a famine in the mid-1990s that killed as many as 2.5 million people, and has since suffered chronic food shortages.

The WFP began working there in the aftermath of the famine and grew into its biggest humanitarian agency, but was forced to radically scale back its programme last year after the government said it no longer wanted handouts.

Under its new programme, the U.N. agency aims to reach about 1.9 million people, but Banbury said a lack of donor support meant it was only reaching 700,000 of a total population of about 23 million.

North Korea, which tested its first nuclear device last year and is at the centre of diplomatic efforts to dismantle its atomic programme, has made incremental improvements in the nutritional status of children, but that could be reversed.

“There is a real risk that we’re going to see backtracking on the improvements, and people who are just on the edge and vulnerable could find themselves in a very difficult situation from a food and nutritional standpoint,” Banbury said.

Despite the close government watch maintained throughout the visit, Banbury said that for the first time WFP officials were granted a spontaneous request to see government warehouses that store WFP-donated food.

“On the one hand, it was very innocuous — it was just a warehouse with sacks of food in it. On the other hand, it was symbolically, quite important and welcome,” he said.

There were also moments of frankness from officials in the country known for its reclusiveness during Banbury’s visits to a paediatric hospital, a boarding school and orphanages in the west of the country.

“In every institution we visited there were malnourished children, according to the officials there themselves, not just our observations,” Banbury said.

Some of the children were severely malnourished, he said.

“It was my impression that the person on the street — the woman riding the bicycle, the kid walking along the side of the street — was thin and hungry and needed more food than they were getting.”

Posted in Agriculture, International Aid, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Food aid key to N Korea talks

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

BBC
2/7/2007

As six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme resume in Beijing, the BBC’s Penny Spiller considers whether food shortages in the secretive communist state may have an impact on progress.

Negotiators for the US, North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia are meeting in Beijing amid signs of a willingness to compromise.

While the last round of talks in December ended in deadlock, bilateral meetings since then have brought unusually positive responses from both North Korea and the US.

Such upbeat noises were unexpected, coming four months after North Korea shocked the world by testing a nuclear bomb.

The test brought international condemnation and UN sanctions, as well as a significant drop in crucial food aid.

South Korea suspended a shipment of 500,000 tonnes of food supplies, while China’s food exports last year were sharply down.

The World Food Programme has struggled to raise even 20% of the funds it requires to feed 1.9 million people it has identified as in immediate need of help.

Aid agencies warned at the time of a humanitarian disaster within months, as the North cannot produce enough food itself to supply its population. It also lost an estimated 100,000 tonnes-worth of crops because of floods in July.

‘Queues for rations’

Kathi Zellweger, of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Pyongyang, said the present food situation in the country was unclear.

No figures are yet available for last year’s harvest, and it was difficult to assess what impact the lack of food aid was having on supplies, she said.

However, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated the country was short of one million tonnes of food – a fifth of the annual requirement to feed its 23 million people.

South Korea-based Father Jerry Hammond said there were signs of shortages – not only in food but also in fuel – when he visited the North with the Catholic charity Caritas in December.

He described seeing long queues for rations, and ordinary people selling goods in the street for money to buy the basics.

“You do expect to see more shortages during the winter time,” the US-born priest, who has visited North Korea dozens of times in the past decade, said.

“But I did see a noticeable difference this time.”

High malnutrition rates

Paul Risley, of the World Food Programme, said people in North Korea may still be cushioned by the November harvest and the pinch will be felt in the coming months.

“We have great concerns,” he said, pointing out that North Korea was now in its second year of food shortages.

He says “stabilising food security” in the country will be very relevant to the talks in Beijing.

“It is certainly the hope of all who are observing the situation in [North Korea] that imports of food can be resumed and returned to prior levels,” he said.

“Malnutrition rates are still the highest in Asia, and we certainly don’t want to see those rates rise any further.”

Father Hammond thinks Pyongyang may be persuaded to consider compromises in Beijing, but is unlikely to do so as a result of any pressure from the people of North Korea.

“People are very cut off from the outside world, and there is constant propaganda about national survival. Even if they go hungry, it will be considered patriotic,” he said.

There have been signs of possible compromise from both sides in the run up to the talks.

Washington has reportedly hinted at flexibility over its offer of aid and security guarantees, as well as showing a willingness to sit down and discuss North Korea’s demands to lift financial sanctions.

Meanwhile, North Korea reportedly recently told visiting US officials it would take the first steps to disband its nuclear programme in return for 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil and other benefits.

And South Korea is keen to resume its shipments of rice and fertiliser aid – if Pyongyang agrees to freeze its nuclear programme, the Choson Ilbo newspaper has reported.

As the nuclear talks resume, all sides will be looking to translate such pressures into progress.

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture statistics, Arduous March, China, Foreign aid statistics, International Aid, International trade, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, UN, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

N. Korean Food Program Needs Funds to Continue to 2009, UN Says

Friday, February 2nd, 2007

Bloomberg.com
Emma O’Brien
2/2/2007

The United Nations program to feed about a quarter of North Korea’s 24 million people needs funds to operate until 2009, after countries such as the U.S. ended or reduced their support, the head of the World Food Program said.

“We only have 16 percent of the funds needed to do our work in North Korea over the next two years,” James T. Morris said late yesterday in Wellington, New Zealand. “The U.S. used to be our largest donor in North Korea, but we haven’t received any money from them for the past 8 to 9 months.”

More than 1 million people died in North Korea during the 1990s as a result of famine caused by drought, floods and economic mismanagement. North Korea’s international isolation deepened last October when the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions after the communist country tested its first nuclear bomb.

The North Korea government said in 2005 it no longer needed the UN program that aimed to feed about 6.5 million people because it succeeded in harvesting enough grain. Floods last year reduced grain production by an estimated 90,000 metric tons, almost one-fifth of the minimum harvest needed to feed the population, the WFP said at the time.

“I am very concerned about the situation in North Korea,” Morris said, as the country’s crop deficit is forecast to be 1 million tons this year. “We are not able to do our job unless there is additional support to provide food.”

Morris, who will leave the directorship of the WFP early this year after 5 years at the helm, was in Wellington for talks with New Zealand’s aid agency, NZAID, on food aid to East Timor. His speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs was his last on an international visit.

The WFP and its sister agencies, the UN Development Program and the UN children’s fund Unicef, are the only major non- governmental organizations still active in North Korea.

Government Restrictions

North Korea is the only country in the world where the UN program has to work through the government. The administration chooses all their local workers and all food has to be distributed via government-selected contractors.

“It’s the only place in the world where we don’t have universal access,” Morris said. “The government makes life very difficult for our work.”

The program used to distribute to 183 counties in North Korea. The government now restricts them to 29. Constraints placed on the program by the government are “abhorrent and unacceptable,” he said.

The average 7-year-old North Korean boy is 8 inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than his South Korean counterpart, Morris said, and 40 percent of North Korean women are anemic.

Russia, China

Russia is now the largest contributor to North Korean aid, Morris said. The U.S. provided about 47 percent of all contributions, in both commodities and funds, over the past 10 years. The WFP, the UN’s largest division, had an operating budget of more than $2.8 billion last year, he said.

China and South Korea, which send food directly to North Korea, are also scaling down their aid.

“They intend to reduce their bilateral food and fertilizer assistance,” Morris said, adding China’s toughened stance toward North Korea since the missile test may be behind the move.

China, North Korea’s closest ally, supported the UN sanctions imposed after the nuclear test that ban sales of military equipment and luxury goods to the country. The U.S. imposed financial restrictions on North Korean bank accounts in October 2005 over allegations of money laundering and counterfeiting.

The issue stalled talks between North Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program. The forum resumed in December after a 13-month break with North Korea refused to enter discussions within the six-nation forum until the U.S. lifts the sanctions.

The six nations will hold another round of talks in Beijing beginning Feb. 8.

Posted in 1990s Famine, Agriculture, Agriculture statistics, Arduous March, DPRK Policies, International Aid, Russia, Statistics, UN, UN World Food Program, UNICEF | Comments Closed

North Korea urgently needs food aid

Sunday, January 28th, 2007

UNFAO
10/30/2003

Despite better harvests this year, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) will have another substantial food deficit in 2004, requiring a large amount of external assistance, two United Nations agencies said today.

A combination of insufficient domestic production, the narrow and inadequate diet of much of the population and growing disparities in access to food as the purchasing power of many households declines, means that some 6.5 million vulnerable North Koreans will require assistance next year, according to a joint report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).

The situation remains “especially precarious” for young children, pregnant and nursing women and many elderly people, the Rome-based agencies warned.

The report projected domestic cereal availability in the 2003/04 marketing season (November-October) at 4.16 million tonnes, 4.7 per cent up from the revised 2002/03 estimate of 3.97 million tonnes.

The 2003 rice and maize harvests each rose by an estimated 4.5 per cent over 2002, to 1.48 million tonnes (milled basis) and 1.73 million tonnes respectively. The improvements were attributed to favourable weather, a relatively low incidence of crop pests and diseases, increased application of donated fertilizer andbetter irrigation.

Forecasting total cereal needs – food, animal feed and seeds – for 2003/04 at 5.1 million tonnes, the FAO/WFP report projected an import requirement of 944,000 tonnes. Given anticipated commercial imports of 100,000 tonnes, concessional imports of 300,000 tonnes, and food aid expected to be in stock or to arrive after 1 November, 2003 of 140,000 tonnes, the uncovered gap will be 404,000 tonnes.

Despite evidence of improved nutritional levels in recent years, malnutrition rates remain “alarmingly high”, the report said. Four out of ten young children suffer from chronic malnutrition, or stunting, according to a large-scale, random sample survey conducted in October 2002 by UNICEF and WFP. Continued, targeted food aid interventions are essential to prevent a slippage back towards previous, higher levels of malnutrition, the UN agencies said.

The economic policy adjustment process initiated in July 2002 has led to many factories being unable to pay full wages. Combined with food price increases that were higher than increases in wages, this has caused a further deterioration in the already inadequate purchasing power of many households, especially in urban areas.

Rations from the Public Distribution System (PDS) – a primary source of food for the 70 per cent of North Korea’s 23 million people living in urban areas- are set to decline to no more than 300 grams per person per day in 2004, from 319 grams this year, according to government authorities. The present allocation ensures only half of an individual’s caloric requirements.

Low as the PDS rations may be, industrial workers and elderly people now spend up to 60 per cent of their income on these rations alone. After paying for non-food necessities, they can ill-afford staples such as rice and maize in private markets, where prices are as much as 3.5 times higher, let alone more nutritious foods.

As the situation may worsen in the immediate future, the report recommended that attention also be given to the low-income PDS dependents in urban areas rendered increasingly under-employed by economic adjustment process.

The FAO/WFP report urged that 484,000 tonnes of commodities, including 400,000 tonnes of cereals, be sought as food aid for 2004 for the most vulnerable North Koreans. Three-quarters of the total is earmarked for children in nurseries, kindergartens, primary schools, orphanages and hospitals, pregnant and nursing women and elderly people.

Despite improvements in the operating environment for aid agencies, the report noted that there are still restrictions on access to the needy and to marketsand shops, reducing the scope for monitoring and the timely detection of newly emerging food-insecure groups. But it also says that the North Korean government has been more forthcoming with information needed to assess household food security.

The report recommended that “in addition to providing urgently needed food aid, the international community enter with the government into a policy dialogue to set an enabling framework to mobilise the economic, financial and other assistance needed to promote sustainable food production and overall food security.”

Posted in Foreign aid statistics, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Number of Undernourished N. Koreans More Than Doubled

Friday, January 26th, 2007

Korea Times
1/26/2007

The number of undernourished people in North Korea has more than doubled over the past decade with a diminishing dietary energy supply despite the country’s increased food production, the Yonhap News Agency said Friday citing a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report.

FAO said in its annual report in Rome on Wednesday that it estimated the number of undernourished in North Korea at 7.9 million for 2001-2003, more than twice as many as the 3.6 million recorded for 1990-1992.

The dietary energy supply, measured in daily calorie intake per person, dropped to 2,150 in 2001-2003 from 2,470 in 1990-1992, marking a 1.25 percent decrease, according to the report.

The proportion of undernourished subsequently grew from 18 percent of the total population to 35 percent, the report said.

North Korea’s per capita food production, however, was growing at an annual average of 1.9 percent during the 1996-2005 period, compared to a drop of 1.8 percent from 1986 to 1995.

Yonhap, a semiofficial South Korean news agency, quoted the report as saying that the North exported $22 million worth of agricultural products in 2002-2004, accounting for 2 percent of the country’s total exports.

The figures compare with $354 million in agricultural imports during the same years, representing 17.1 percent of North Korea’s total imports.

Plagued by repeated floods and droughts, North Korea subsisted on international food donations for nearly a decade from the mid-1990s. But the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), the main coordinator of the donations, was told to leave the country, which claimed it was producing a bumper crop and receiving aid outside of the U.N. relief agency.

The WFP curtailed much of its presence and activities in the North last year as a result.

Yonhap quoted FAO’s report as stating that North Korea has been the biggest recipient of food aid in recent years and still receives more than 1.1 million tons of grain equivalents per year on average. This equaled 31 percent of the country’s total cereal production in 2002 and 22 percent in 2003.

The report said the number of undernourished in South Korea stayed the same at 800,000 in 1990-1992 and 2001-2003, with the dietary energy supply increasing 0.12 percent between the two periods.

Posted in International Aid, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

S. Korea Investigating Aid to North

Monday, January 22nd, 2007

Donga (Hat Tip DPRK Studies)
1/22/2007

It is expected that the government’s aid to North Korea will be affected as the international community has decided to investigate the general situation of aid projects using U.N. funding including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). So far, the government and private groups supporting North Korea have often used international organizations as a means to give humanitarian aid to the North, as such aid through the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and others are less influenced by the inter-Korean relations.

Last year, the government and private organizations didn’t provide previously planned corn aid to the North in the aftermath of North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests. However, they spent 5.912 billion won in malaria preventive measures and infant and child support.

In 2005, they sent products worth 25.773 billion won in food aid and quarantine measures against malaria. Besides, they provided goods worth 2.254 billion won in aid and preventive measures against malaria with the North in 2004, and offered North Korea goods worth 20.303 billion won in corn, malaria preventive measures, and vaccine and immunizing agents in 2003.

The total sum Korea spent on the North in humanitarian assistance over the last 10 years (from 1995 to 2004) amounts to $119.43 million, 7.99 percent of the total U.N. financial aid of $1.49 billion to North Korea. During the period, apart from world organizations, the government gave the North $1.16 billion in financial support.

A government official said, “The government’s support for North Korea through international groups is its obligation as a responsible member of the international community,” and added, “Assistance for North Korea through world organizations is for humanitarian purposes, and as far as I know, there is no possibility for misappropriating funds since the aid is being carried out based on a principle of providing 100 percent goods.”

However, contrary to the above government’s official statement, the government seems rather perplexed at the suspicion that its aid through world organizations was diverted to be used for the North’s nuclear development program. The government has used world organizations as an indirect route for its aid toward North Korea because it was worried about getting embroiled in accusations that it is being too lenient on North Korea.

Unification Minister Lee Jae-Jeong also said in his inaugural speech that even humanitarian aid should be divided into emergency aid, assistance in loan form and aid for development, and that emergency aid should continue under any circumstances in order to emphasize the continuation of government’s support for North Korea through world organizations.

Minister Lee has so far expressed regret to the WFP over the suspension of food aid to the North and emergency relief aid for North Korea’s catastrophic flood damage. Another government official stated, The “UNDP seems to have nothing to do with humanitarian aid since it is aid for the development of North Korea. Still, it will still affect the government’s humanitarian assistance program for the North in the future.”

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the government is investing in the Tumen River Area Development Programme (TRADP) the government has been participating in since 1995 under the auspices of the UNDP. An official at the Ministry of Finance and Economy noted, “This year, the government will pay $181,000 for the operating expenses of the TRADP office.”

Posted in Economic reform, Epidemics, Foreign direct investment, Health care, International Aid, Pediatrics, South Korea, Tumen River Area Development Programme (TRADP), UN World Food Program, UNDP, UNWHO | Comments Closed

North Koreans cut off and freezing to death

Sunday, January 21st, 2007

Daily Telegraph
Sergey Soukhorukov
1/21/2007

The men who finally made it into the remote highland village of Koogang were greeted by an eerie silence and a gruesome sight.

Lying among the simple wooden huts and burnt remnants of wooden furniture, they found the bodies of 46 North Korean villagers, including women and children, all of whom had frozen to death. Cut off from the outside world by one of the harshest winters in many years, the villagers had suffered a macabre fate that has exposed both the desperate poverty and callous misrule blighting the Stalinist state.

More than 300 people are thought to have perished from cold so far this winter in North Korea’s mountainous north, victims of temperatures as low as -30C and of an arrogant ruling clique.

“Nobody got out of the trap alive,” said an official at the Chinese embassy in the capital, Pyongyang, who confirmed the events of Koogang. “After heavy snowfalls, there was a severe frost. The inhabitants were doomed.”

In a country notorious for its secretiveness, the regime of President Kim Jong-il has made no mention of the deaths. As the rest of the population struggle to stay warm, 50,000 members of his ruling elite continue to live in splendid isolation in a compound in central Pyongyang – enjoying the benefits of hot water, central heating and satellite television.

Elsewhere in the city, though, the scene could have been lifted from the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. The air is thick with the smell of coal dust, as families light fires on the floors of their apartments to keep out the bitter, cold winds that blow south from Siberia.

Outside Pyongyang, the situation is yet more desperate. A six-mile drive from the city, poor farmers trudge through the snow with bundles of brushwood on their backs.

A massive process of deforestation, begun in the 1990s by Kim Jong-il’s father and predecessor, Kim il Sung, has resulted in huge swathes of forest being chopped down to clear land for farming. The disastrous policy led to large-scale soil erosion, believed by many to have been a leading cause of mass famine of the 1990s, when up to three million people starved to death.

It has made the bitter winter, when the temperature in the capital routinely falls to -13C, even more dangerous as the rural poor struggle to gather enough firewood to sustain them.

The inhabitants of Koogang, around 200 miles north-east of the capital, set fire to tables and chairs, even tearing down the wood from their own homes in a desperate attempt to keep warm.

The World Food Programme estimates that North Korea will be 900,000 tons short of the amount of food needed to feed its 23 million population this year. Aid efforts have been complicated by sanctions, imposed after Kim Jong-il’s regime carried out a nuclear test in October last year. Last week, the country held negotiations with US diplomats aimed at re-starting six-party peace talks, which also include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Christopher Hill, America’s chief envoy at the talks in Berlin, signalled progress, saying that the US looked forward “to establishing a normal relationship with North Korea”.

But while there may be signs of a thaw in the country’s frosty relationship with the West, in Pyongyang there is no respite from the sub-zero temperatures.

The electricity supply is notoriously unreliable and as evening falls the city streets are plunged into darkness.

The only constant source of light is the giant illuminated copper statue of Kim il Sung on a hill top overlooking the city – cold comfort for those living through the bleak North Korean mid-winter.

Posted in Agriculture, China, Civil society, Coal, Electricity, Energy, International Aid, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

WFP reports slight rise in N.K. aid but still wide gap with target amount

Monday, January 15th, 2007

Yonhap
1/15/2007

International aid for North Korea has increased over the past few months, but is still far behind the amount needed to help the country in its recovery efforts, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said Monday.

A tally as of Sunday showed the relief agency received slightly more than US$16.25 million in assistance from donor nations, up from $12.7 million in November. But the total accounts for only 15.9 percent of the $102 million the WFP says it needs for its protracted relief and recovery operation (PRRO) in North Korea.

In November, the WFP received 12.43 percent of the target amount.

Russia remained the biggest nation donor with $5 million, putting up 4.9 percent of the desired aid.

Switzerland increased its offer to $2.57 million from $2.2 million in November, and Ireland to $640,000 from $319,000.

The collected assistance includes $2.3 million carried over from the previous operation.

Private donations stayed the same at $8,470, while multilateral donation increased from $1.2 million to $1.9 million.

The WFP has been the main organizer of food aid to North Korea who, for the last decade, have depended on international handouts to feed its people. Pyongyang asked the relief agency to leave at the end of 2005, so the WFP now maintains a low-scale presence and has switched its efforts from food to development and reconstruction projects.

South Korean civic organizations and informed sources say there is now a contagion of infectious diseases like scarlet fever and typhoid in North Korea.

Posted in Agriculture statistics, Foreign aid statistics, International Aid, Russia, Switzerland, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

North Korean Economy Watch