[USFK Forums] U.N. agency conditionally approves new aid program for N. Korea [Yonhap

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Friday, February 24, 2006

U.N. agency conditionally approves new aid program for N. Korea

2006/02/24 14:30

SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Yonhap) -- The World Food Program's executive board has approved a new two-year program to provide food aid to children and young women in communist North Korea, the U.N. agency said in a statement released Friday.

"The World Food Programme's governing Executive Board today approved a two-year plan to build on the agency's ten-year record of humanitarian assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) by tackling nutritional deficiencies and chronic hunger," said the statement released from Rome, referring to the North's official name, DPRK.

Valued at US$102 million, the new assistance program is mainly aimed at providing vitamin-and-mineral enriched foods to "young children and women of child-bearing age," the statement said.

The agency, however, said it would have no choice but to withdraw the program unless the communist state agrees to allow it to monitor the distribution of its assistance.

"Approval by the Executive Board is just the first step in the process of resuming food aid to DPRK," the statement said.

Tony Banbury, WFP's regional director for Asia, also said the WFP will be able to provide the planned assistance only "if we can reach an acceptable agreement with the government of the DPRK on implementation of the program."
The U.N. relief agency had provided food and other humanitarian assistance for the past 10 years to the impoverished North, a large number of whose 23 million population have depended on international handouts for daily living since the country was hit by a nationwide famine and economic depression in the early 1990s.

The WFP was forced to end its assistance to North Korea at the end of last year after Pyongyang demanded that all activities by international humanitarian agencies end before the end of November, citing increased grain production and other sources of food assistance, mainly Seoul, which usually carries much less stringent monitoring requirements.

"Giving nutritious foods to children in nurseries, kindergartens, primary schools and other institutions and to pregnant and nursing women is a vital investment in the future of innocents," Banbury said in the statement.

"As in the past, our policy of 'no access, no food' will continue," he added.

bdk@yna.co.kr

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