North Korea needs food

Anthony Banbury IHT
Wednesday, January 21, 2004

BANGKOK In the past few days, the World Food Program, a United Nations agency, has been warning of food aid shortages in North Korea. Despite recent announcements of new contributions from the United States, the European Union and Australia, food will not arrive in time for 2.7 million people as winter grips the Korean Peninsula. Come February, we will have no cereals for almost 6.5 million North Korean children, women and the elderly. Timing is everything when it comes to food aid; it can take several months from the time a donation is announced to the time a child is fed.

At this critical juncture, the question has been raised of whether the world should give food aid to North Korea at all. Since 1995, when North Korea experienced harsh natural disasters and a dramatic economic decline, the international community has clearly believed that it should. Donors like the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and the European Union sent millions of tons of food to North Koreans through the World Food Program. This generosity, and the hard work of the agency's staff, saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

North Korea has not had a major natural disaster for several years now. Crop production has improved and food aid has reduced the risk to millions of lives. Given the North Korean government's continuing limitations on aid monitoring, should the world still give food to North Korea? Is it still necessary? Is food reaching those who need it most? These are tough questions.

The World Food Program is convinced that food is still necessary, and that it does reach the hungry. There are many reasons why we should continue to send food aid to North Korea.

Millions of civilians in North Korea still desperately need food. World Food Program operations are designed to feed 6.5 million North Koreans, mostly women, children and the elderly. Forty percent of children in the country are chronically malnourished, leaving many permanently stunted and with impaired learning ability.

The World Food Program does monitor its food aid. The agency has more than 40 international staff in six offices around North Korea, who conduct more than 500 monitoring visits each month. Regrettably, the government requires us to agree the week before on a monitoring plan identifying the districts and types of institutions to be visited. But it is only on the day of the visit that we decide which school or home will actually be visited - leaving little time for the government to move commodities around or coach beneficiaries.

We are by far the largest humanitarian agency in North Korea, and the only one with a constant presence outside the capital, Pyongyang. Most of our efforts focus on monitoring. The agency works tirelessly through political channels to improve our ability to monitor food aid in North Korea.

These efforts have produced significant improvements. Child malnutrition has decreased substantially since our first survey in 1998. We still have a way to go on monitoring, but each year has been better than the previous one.

The statistics do not show the sacrifice that the food agency's staff make to monitor aid in North Korea. Heera Shresta, for example, is working in Chongjin, three days' drive from Pyongyang. It is below freezing in his office and his bedroom. He goes for days without electricity. His only water comes in a bucket, and is frozen by morning. Most of the agency's North Korea staff face similar conditions.

Do we stop providing food to millions of hungry and cold North Koreans, given that we cannot guarantee that all of the assistance is reaching the intended beneficiaries? World Food Program staff are proud, and it offends us if a single grain of rice goes to the military or the elites of any country. But we are also humanitarians. We are trying our best to feed about six million North Koreans . We may not be reaching them all, but we are reaching many of them who desperately need our assistance.

The World Food Program and our donors have decided to keep providing food aid despite the obstacles. This is a decision made by those with responsibility. It is a tough decision, it is a principled decision and it is one that makes me proud.

The writer is the World Food Program's regional director for Asia.