In Pyongyang, walking a fine line between politics and aid

One of the most secretive societies in the world, North Korea has kept a tenuous relationship with the international development community for years. Some 2.4 million people, including pregnant women, children and the elderly, need food assistance in the country — or 10 percent of the total population. But Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions have led many traditional donor governments to impose sanctions on the reclusive state, making it difficult to deliver food aid. As a result of sanctions imposed in early 2013, for example, international nongovernmental organizations in Pyongyang were unable to receive remittances through September 2014. Aid workers based in the country’s capital city, who commented on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Devex that these sanctions had left their organizations struggling to bring in money to fund their activities for more than a year. Worse, donor fatigue is setting in. There are very few donors to North Korea, and the list just keeps getting shorter. Not surprisingly, with the dwindling number of donors come significantly reduced funding. In 2013, for instance, 14 donor governments provided humanitarian funding to Pyongyang. Including private donations, allocations of unearmarked funds by U.N. agencies and contributions from the Central Emergency Response Fund — the country’s largest humanitarian aid donor — $62.8 million in humanitarian support was given to North Korea that year. But last year, with only eight donor countries providing humanitarian aid to Pyongyang and nothing from private individuals or corporations at all, funding halved to just $30.3 million. And it’s not just the response to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ appeals that is weakening. Even individual appeals by separate U.N. agencies are seeing dwindling support for North Korea. Of UNICEF’s $150 million humanitarian appeal for North Korea in 2013, only 42 percent was met. The children’s agency reduced its funding request in 2014 to just $20 million, but even then only about 30 percent was funded. For 2015, UNICEF dropped its appeal further to $18 million. A complicated aid landscape On paper, all aid work in North Korea is counted as humanitarian assistance. Development aid needs to be in line with national goals and priorities as outlined in the country’s national development plan — one that U.N. agencies and international NGOs have yet to see. But even if Pyongyang did share this plan to the agencies, the donors funding these organizations aren’t likely to support these goals because of political reasons and human rights concerns. “So while agencies and NGOs might be implementing some projects that traditionally could be viewed as development projects — for example, in food security, education and nutrition — these are all being sold as ‘humanitarian projects’ [to donors] with no affiliation to [North Korea’s wider] development goals and objectives,” an aid worker in Pyongyang disclosed to Devex. Further, aid professionals working in North Korea describe a complex situation where agencies walk a fine line between politics and providing humanitarian assistance in a strictly monitored environment. Reports of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses and provocative military acts have created a highly politicized donor climate that significantly influences humanitarian operations. The work of U.N. agencies closely follows the goals set in the 2011-2015 strategic cooperation framework between the global body and the government of North Korea: social development, partnerships for knowledge and development management, nutrition, and climate change and the environment. NGOs, on the other hand, can only work on development projects and in the capacity the government asks them to be involved in. Except in rare cases such as the floods in 2013, they cannot provide humanitarian intervention. While these organizations have local staff, all of these employees are seconded by North Korea’s foreign affairs ministry. Instead of providing operational and technical support, the role of national staff is generally perceived to be that of ensuring operations fall within the government’s controlling lines. But this is not always necessarily an impediment. For some agencies, government-provided national staff plays key roles in liaising with the authorities for project implementation. “These employees are behaving more and more as WFP national staff and are highly trained and skilled,” Leo van der Velden, former deputy director of the World Food Program in North Korea, told Devex. Its national staff has made weekly meetings with government counterparts possible, where problems could be solved on the spot and other issues discussed. “This is quite different — in the positive sense — than in many other countries where WFP is working, where the government is not so forthcoming, responding and reachable,” the former WFP official said. ‘No access, no aid’ Even with help from national staff, however, negotiating access in North Korea is still a long and difficult process. “Agencies and NGOs operate on the principle of ‘no access, no aid,’” Kasper Engborg, who was the U.N. coordination officer in North Korea from 2012 to 2014, told Devex. International aid workers cannot provide assistance to areas they are not allowed access to, even if the people there are believed to be in dire need of humanitarian support. There are various reasons expats are not allowed in these areas, but the widespread notion is that everything all comes down to money. “The impression is that the more funds an agency can mobilize, the more favorable operating conditions will be granted, which means an agency with lower funding will have less access to people in need,” Engborg said. “This undermines donor confidence and resource mobilization.” Further, except for Handicap International — which was allowed to work with a local civil society organization for disabled people albeit under government control — no NGO is allowed to work with civil society. They can also only implement development projects alongside government counterparts. Agencies normally need a seven-day lead time for their monitoring missions to be approved and for national staff and local officials to be assigned to accompany them. In special circumstances, this lead time may be reduced to 48 hours or less. But some have also negotiated permanent, shorter lead time. UNICEF needs to only notify government officials four days ahead to implement random data verification and their programs for health, nutrition, and water, sanitation and hygiene. WFP’s agreement meanwhile allows immediate access to sites on request, including access to randomly selected beneficiaries and Korean-speaking international staff. “There are restrictions on travel outside Pyongyang,” WFP’s van der Velden further explained, noting that expats always need a permit to drive anywhere, except when going to Nampo, a port city southwest of Pyongyang. But mutual understanding and clarity on expectations, reciprocal patience, and continuous engagement with the government can build much-needed confidence and have a positive impact on the implementation of projects, the former deputy director added. WFP only ventures outside of Pyongyang when accompanied with a national staff member, a government counterpart, or both. Its driver is a government employee as well. Because of the “good relations” the U.N. food agency has built with the government, “travel permits are a matter of routine and — to WFP at least — in general provided ‘directly,’ that is, within 24 hours,” van der Velden said. He did note that is good practice to give the government more time to organize monitoring missions for longer and more complicated trips, adding that “unannounced inspections are not really possible, although WFP is able to choose from categories of institutions it plans to visit on the spot.” But even with the best relations, some areas remain completely off limits. Expats are barred from entering the two provinces with the highest levels of malnutrition, Jagang and Ryanggang in the mountainous range near the Chinese border, reportedly because of the presence of sensitive military or penal facilities. Build confidence, mutual trust In such a politicized and restrictive environment, where reaching the people most in need is hampered by lack of access and transparency, how then can development groups make a significant impact of the lives of North Korea’s disadvantaged? “The view from U.N. agencies and international NGOs is that there are low levels of diversion to unintended beneficiaries, corruption (such as selling of supplies) or even mismanagement (poor inventory control),” a 2014 independent review of the CERF process in North Korea noted, “but the main concern seems to be to avoid puncturing the illusion that the state is providing what people need.” “The situation has changed since 1995 when the first humanitarian workers arrived in North Korea,” Engborg said. “The approach so far has been to build confidence with the government in order for them to perceive us as reliable partners in humanitarian response without blaming them.” Continuous engagement with the government helps increase its confidence and familiarity with humanitarian operations, although not all approaches have proved to be successful. “A strategy has also been to be able to ‘tell the story’ that humanitarian aid does make a difference for the individual. This last approach however does require more confidence building and has so far therefore not been so successful,” Engborg admitted. Despite the constraints, there are six U.N. resident agencies and another six international nongovernmental organizations in North Korea. Apart from Handicap International, Première Urgence – Aide Médicale Internationale, Save the Children, Concern Worldwide, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and Triangle Génération Humanitaire all have resident missions in Pyongyang. They are designated as EU program support units and operate under the aegis of the EU aid cooperation office. There are also a number of international NGOs and faith-based organizations — including World Vision, Mercy Corps and Samaritan’s Purse — that fly in on an ad hoc basis to monitor food security projects. In addition to WFP and UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N. Development Program, U.N. Population Fund and World Health Organization comprise the U.N. country team in North Korea. Development agencies such as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the French Cooperation Bureau and the Italian Development Cooperation Office have a presence in Pyongyang as well, while the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies operates at a fairly small scale through local North Korea Red Cross teams. Check out more insights and analysis for global development leaders like you, and sign up as an Executive Member to receive the information you need for your organization to thrive.