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.