North Korea Food Aid Revived, Without U.S.

May 11, 2006 — -- In an agreement reached Wednesday in Pyongyang and announced today, the United Nation's World Food Program will resume food aid to North Korea within two weeks. The renewed program, which will be significantly smaller than the one that ended in December 2005, was allowed to resume as North Korea once again faces severe food shortages.

WFP's regional director for Asia Tony Banbury called the agreement "an important breakthrough."

"We have worked hard to reach this point, now we have signed the deal, and we can restart our food aid operations immediately," Banbury said.

The program is aimed at the most vulnerable of North Korea's impoverished population and intended to improve nutritional deficiencies within the country. Specifically, it will target women and children in the country's poorest regions.

The United States, however, has not given any food to North Korea since the previous program's suspension and will not participate in the new program, citing concerns about the delivery of such aid within North Korea. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said today that the United States continues to have concerns about "the ability to monitor whether or not these humanitarian food shipments do, in fact, get to those who are most in need."

While McCormack did say that acceptable monitoring is not the only determining factor in whether the U.S. will provide food aid, he also indicated that the presence of regional offices would offer some reassurance that the aid's distribution is receiving adequate oversight.

The agreement, the WFP admits, is not ideal.

"It's not everything we wanted, but it's a sound base to get started again. ...WFP will maintain our long-standing policy of 'no access, no food,'" Banbury said, referring to the need for direct WFP oversight of the aid's distribution in the country.

Indeed, the WFP staff that will administer the program in North Korea will visit organizations such as hospitals, orphanages and other distribution centers to ensure that the aid is delivered and to assess the effectiveness of the program.