Assistance to North Korea


Book Description

This report summarizes U.S. assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea). It will be updated periodically to track changes in U.S. provision of aid to North Korea.




Famine in North Korea


Book Description

"In their carefully researched book, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland present the most comprehensive account of the famine to date, examining not only the origins and aftermath of the crisis but also the regime's response to outside aid and the effect of its current policies on the country's economic future. Their study begins by considering the root causes of the famine, weighing the effects of the decline in the availability of food against its poor distribution. Then it takes a close look at the aid effort, addressing the difficulty of monitoring assistance within the country, and concludes with an analysis of current economic reforms and strategies of engagement."--BOOK JACKET.




Foreign Assistance to North Korea


Book Description

Since 1995, the United States has provided over $1 billion in foreign assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea), about 60% of which has taken the form of food aid, and about 40% in the form of energy assistance channeled through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). Additionally, the Bush Administration has proposed offering North Korea broad economic development assistance in exchange for Pyongyang verifiably dismantling its nuclear program and cooperating on other security-related issues. Although the President has considerable flexibility to offer some forms of short term development assistance, longer term aid would likely require congressional action. Since the current North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002, when North Korea reportedly admitted that it has a secret uranium enrichment nuclear program, the dollar amount of U.S. aid has fallen by an order of magnitude. No U.S. funds have been provided to KEDO since FY2003, and the Bush Administration's position is that it would like to permanently end the KEDO program. U.S. food aid also has fallen considerably in recent years. This report describes and assesses U.S. aid programs to North Korea, including the controversies surrounding the programs, their relationship to the larger debate over strategy and objectives toward the DPRK, and policy options. The roles of China, South Korea, and Japan in providing assistance to North Korea are discussed, highlighting the likelihood that any dramatic decrease in U.S. aid to North Korea may have only marginal effects without the cooperation of these countries, particularly China and South Korea. This report will be updated as circumstances warrant.




The North Korean Economy


Book Description

Viewed from afar, North Korea may appear bizarre, or positively irrational. But as Nicholas Eberstadt demonstrates in this meticulously researched volume, there is a grim coherence to North Korea's political economy, and a ruthless logic undergirding it--one that unreservedly subordinates economic welfare to augmentation of political power. Thus, paradoxically, even as official policies and practices consign the DPRK economy to a perilous realm between crisis and catastrophe, the country's leadership maintains unchallenged domestic control and has actually managed to increase its international influence.Through painstaking collection of hard-to-uncover data and careful analysis, Eberstadt provides a quantitative tableau of North Korea's terrible failure in its economic race against South Korea; its stubborn adherence to policies all but guaranteed to stifle growth and undermine economic performance; and the longstanding official effort to ignore, or mitigate, pressures for economic reform.Eberstadt is skeptical of optimistic accounts from South Korea and elsewhere suggesting that the North Korean leadership is interested in resolving the current nuclear impasse, and getting on with the business of reform and development. So long as Pyongyang's rulers entertain the ambition of reunifying the Korean peninsula on its own terms, Eberstadt argues, economic reforms worthy of the name will be subversive of state authority--and vigilantly resisted by Pyongyang's rulers. This authoritative volume has received widespread attention from Asian specialists, well as those concerned with nuclear proliferation and world peace, and international relations professionals in general.




Foreign Assistance


Book Description




U.S. Assistance to North Korea


Book Description

This report summarizes U.S. assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea). It will be updated periodically to track changes in U.S. provision of aid to North Korea. A more extended description and analysis of aid to North Korea, including assistance provided by other countries, is provided in CRS Report RL31785, Foreign Assistance to North Korea. Since 1995, the United States has provided North Korea with over $1.1 billion in assistance, about 60% of which has paid for food aid. About 40% was energy assistance channeled through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the multilateral organization established in 1994 to provide energy aid in exchange for North Korea's pledge to halt its existing nuclear program. U.S. assistance to North Korea has fallen significantly over the past three years, and was zero in FY2006. The KEDO program was shut down in January 2006. Food aid has been scrutinized because the DPRK government restricts the ability of donor agencies to operate in the country. Compounding the problem is that South Korea and China, by far North Korea's two most important providers of food aid, have little to no monitoring systems in place. Since North Korea tested several missiles in July 2006, South Korea has suspended most official humanitarian assistance. In the summer of 2005, the North Korean government announced it would no longer need humanitarian assistance from the United Nations, including from the World Food Program (WFP), the primary channel for U.S. food aid. Part of Pyongyang's motivation appears to have been a desire to negotiate a less intrusive monitoring presence. In response, the WFP negotiated a drastically scaled-down development assistance program with the North Korean government. Since then, the United States has not provided any food aid.




U.S. Assistance to North Korea: Fact Sheet


Book Description

Since 1995, the U.S. has provided over $1 billion in foreign assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea), about 60% of which has taken the form of food aid, and about 40% in the form of energy assistance channeled through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). Additionally, the Bush Administration has proposed offering North Korea broad economic development assistance in exchange for Pyongyang verifiably dismantling its nuclear porgram and cooperating on other security-related issues. U.S. aid to North Korea has been controversial since its inception, and the controversy has been intimately linked to the larger debate over the most effective strategy for dealing with the DPRK.




Famine in North Korea


Book Description

In the mid-1990s, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland present the most comprehensive and penetrating account of the famine to date, examining not only the origins and aftermath of the crisis but also the regime's response to outside aid and the effect of its current policies on the country's economic future. North Korea's famine exemplified the depredations that can arise from tyrannical rule and the dilemmas such regimes pose for the humanitarian community. To reveal the state's culpability is a vital project of historical recovery, especially in light of our current engagement with the "North Korean question."







The North Korean Conundrum


Book Description

North Korea is consistently identified as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers. However, the issue of human rights in North Korea is a complex one, intertwined with issues like life in the North Korean police state, inter-Korean relations, denuclearization, access to information in the North, and international cooperation, to name a few. There are likewise multiple actors involved, including the two Korean governments, the United States, the United Nations, South Korea NGOs, and global human rights organizations. While North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the security threat it poses have occupied the center stage and eclipsed other issues in recent years, human rights remain important to U.S. policy. The contributors to The North Korean Conundrum explore how dealing with the issue of human rights is shaped and affected by the political issues with which it is so entwined. Sections discuss the role of the United Nations; how North Koreans’ limited access to information is part of the problem, and how this is changing; the relationship between human rights and denuclearization; and North Korean human rights in comparative perspective.