Global Policy Forum

A slump in donations for its emergency operation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is forcing the UN World Food Programme to halt cereal distributions to three million hungry women, children and elderly people. An additional 1.5 million beneficiaries will be deprived of rations in the depths of winter unless substantial fresh pledges are made soon.

"Such across-the-board cutbacks would cause acute suffering on a massive scale", said Rick Corsino, WFP Country Director for the DPRK. "As we head into the harsh North Korean winter, those affected will find it very difficult to cope. The tragedy is that the people most at risk stand to bear the entire burden. They are already on the edge."

The initial WFP ration stoppages – now inevitable – will be felt by three million recipients in the relatively better-off western and southern provinces over the next two months. A further 1.5 million more destitute beneficiaries in the struggling, erstwhile industrial east are threatened by still avoidable cut-offs from the beginning of next year.

This month, almost one million underfed primary school children in the west were deprived of a 200-grams-a-day grain ration that provided much of their limited calorie intake. More than 140,000 elderly people – including widows, couples living alone, the chronically ill and the disabled – now have to make do without a 500 grams-a-day ration. Distribution of 200-grams-a-day rations to over 250,000 secondary school children, suspended in May as aid supplies dwindled, could not be resumed.

In October, cereal distributions to over 460,000 kindergarten children and some 250,000 pregnant and nursing women, who presently receive 350 and 650 grams a day respectively, will stop. In November, more than 925,000 nursery children will no longer be given their 160-grams a day entitlement. "By then, we will no longer be feeding well over half the people who most need our help", Corsino said.

"As we will be reduced to assisting the most vulnerable of the very vulnerable – orphans and paediatric hospital patients countrywide, and other young children and women in the eastern provinces – our primary concern now is what happens to them when existing commitments are exhausted."

WFP- whose previous DPRK emergency operations were fully underwritten by donors – urgently needs more than 100,000 tonnes of cereals to cover its requirements for the remainder of 2002 and through January of next year.

"Even the most prompt of pledges would not translate into food in a hungry person's bowl for at least two months", Corsino said. "Yet if commitments were made now, they could prevent this crisis escalating dramatically. We urge donors to do their utmost to limit the damage."

Those deprived of WFP assistance are all but entirely dependent on the government-run Public Distribution System, traditionally the main channel for food to most of the country's 23 million people. The PDS currently provides an average of 300 grams a day to those on its books – less than half the internationally recommended minimum intake – and its rations are expected to increase only slightly from next month with the harvesting of the main rice and maize crops.

While still restrained in its monitoring efforts by government limitations on free access to beneficiaries, in recent years WFP has been able to increase monitoring coverage by augmenting its international staff in-country. Further, the gradual relaxation of some restrictions on its monitoring activities has been welcomed by WFP.

Droughts, floods and tropical storms have been exacerbating agricultural and industrial problems in the DPRK since WFP launched its first emergency operation in 1995. The country posts sizeable food deficits each year, and remains a long way from self-sufficiency.

Government statistics indicate that 45 per cent of North Korean children under five are chronically malnourished, while a further four million school-aged children are also severely underfed, impairing their capacity to grow physically and mentally. The nutritional status of some 500,000 pregnant and nursing women is also very poor, according to the official data.

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