In the most basic sense, development aid is anything that is an investment in the future. |
North Korea has a substantial and chronic food deficit, |
Our view is that, yes, the humanitarian situation in the North has improved, but not to the extent to which the country can do without humanitarian aid. |
Part of the problem is with our monitoring people moving around the country, ... This is and has been a concern for them. |
The donors on the executive board expressed pretty serious concern about the operating conditions that were on offer and gave us a mandate to try and better them. |
The government of North Korea has made it very clear that it no longer wants our emergency food aid. It's a sovereign country, and we must respect that position. |
Their were 25 pupils and only three of them has any meat in the last month. Very occasionally an egg, a little bit of vegetable and that's it. |
They asked us to go back to the government and seek better conditions. We will not resume until we have a satisfactory set of operating conditions agreed with the government. |
They're going up into the mountains in search of edible grasses. They're on the beaches collecting seaweed, |
Until donors are happy, they're not going to be too inclined to resource the operation. |
We believe there is still short and medium-term needs as well as long-term needs. |
We hope to arrive at a mutually satisfactory set of operating procedures. If that doesn't happen, it will be hard to get commodities from our donors. |
We're the honest broker in the middle, and we'll try to achieve a solution that's satisfactory to both sides. We hope that some donors will support development aid in 2006 and beyond. |