Starving N. Korea begs for food, but U.S. has concerns about resuming aid

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By Chico Harlan

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 19, 2011; 2:33 PM

TOKYO - North Korea recently took the unusual step of begging for food hand-outs from the foreign governments it usually threatens.

Plagued by floods, an outbreak of a livestock disease and a brutal winter, the government ordered its embassies and diplomatic offices around the world to seek help.

The request has put the United States and other Western countries in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to ignore the pleas of a starving country or pump food into a corrupt distribution system that often gives food to those who need it least.

The United States, which suspended its food aid to North Korea two years ago amid concerns about transparency, "has no plans for any contributions at this time," said Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top East Asia official.

Meanwhile, the U.N. World Food Program, responsible for much of the food aid in North Korea, said its current food supply could sustain operations in the communist country for only another month.

"We're certainly hopefully that new donations will be coming in the upcoming weeks," said Marcus Prior, the WFP's spokesman in Asia.

Next month, the WFP plans to complete an assessment of North Korea's food situation - a report that could influence how foreign governments respond. But few doubt that North Korea's 24 million people need food.

For two decades, since the collapse of a public distribution system that supplied food rations, Kim Jong Il's government has neglected to care for its people. In the early and mid-1990s, an estimated 1 million died in a famine.

North Korea has since developed a grassroots network of private markets - a stand-in for the government's failures, but also the target of occasional crackdowns from a leadership that views free market activity as a threat.

Amid the continued food shortages, though, humanitarian experts describe another failure: the international aid effort. Outsiders have yet to devise a formula that reaches basic standards for monitoring or effectiveness. After 15 years and about $2 billion of aid efforts, one in four pregnant women is malnourished and one in three children is stunted.

The government places obstacles at every step of the distribution process - the top complaint from U.S. officials, who demand better transparency before aid resumes.

Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a statement this week calling it "essential" that U.S. assistance is "actually received by hungry North Korean children and their families, rather than reinforcing the North Korean military whose care is already a priority over the rest of the population."

Researchers and nongovernmental organizations disagree on the proportion of food aid the North Korean government diverts, with estimates ranging from 10 to 50 percent. Diverted food aid, according to experts, is given to the military, redistributed as gifts for elites or re-sold - at a steep profit - to vendors in the market. John Everard, the British ambassador in Pyongyang from 2006 to 2008, said he sometimes saw rice bags labeled "World Food Program" in the market halls.

In recent years, North Korea has often banned food aid monitors from traveling to the most vulnerable provinces. It also demands that monitors do not know Korean. Though North Korea makes exceptions, Prior said, it generally demands seven days' notice before monitors can visit an area.

Kim Seong-min, a former North Korean army propaganda officer who defected, said he once saw a ton of rice aid arrive at a distribution center. The military distributed the food in a village at a monitor's request but later went door to door retrieving it.

"I remember some of the collection officers were complaining about not being able to collect 100 percent of the rice," Kim said.

Partly influenced by earlier distribution challenges, the WFP last July tailored its operation in North Korea exclusively to women and children, targeting hospitals, orphanages and schools. The program gave out blends of milk and rice or milk and cereal - concoctions unlikely to be presented as gifts to the most loyal cadres.

Hunger problems, however, threaten to grow wider this year, experts say. North Korea has endured its coldest winter in six decades, and farmers worry about below-average crop output. North Korea last week confirmed an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, with its state-run news agency saying that "more than 10,000 heads of draught oxen, milch cows and pigs have so far been infected with the diseases and thousands of them died."

As of two years ago, the U.S. government ranked as the largest food donor to North Korea, giving 170,000 tons between May 2008 and March 2009. When that program was terminated, 22,700 tons of U.S.-donated food remained in the pipeline. North Korea still hasn't accounted for how that food was distributed.

North Korea lost another major donor in 2008, when conservative president Lee Myung-bak came to power in South Korea. Lee promptly revoked the massive shipments of food - sometimes half a million tons annually - delivered by his liberal predecessors under the Sunshine Policy.

In recent months, numerous defector groups in South Korea have reported food shortages not just among regular citizens in the North but also within the 1.2 million-member military.

Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group that has informants in the North, reported in January that the Party had ordered a nationwide food donation for soldiers.

"The regime doesn't mind that much if the civilian population goes hungry," Everard said. "But if its core supporters and the military don't get fed, then it starts to get nervous."

Special correspondent Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.

U.S. Proposes Climate Fund for Poor Nations

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By LISA FRIEDMAN of ClimateWire

The United States has proposed a new global fund that would direct billions of dollars to help poor countries prepare for climate disasters and adjust to low-carbon economies.

The fund would likely operate under the World Bank, U.S. Treasury officials said, and would be the main vehicle to deliver emissions reduction and adaptation measures throughout the world.

William Pizer, deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy at the U.S. Treasury Department, explained that the fund would contribute to a spectrum of projects from "building a solar park or creating a financial vehicle to support investments in energy efficiency to creating an insurance mechanism for disasters or crops."

The world's poorest countries also are among the most vulnerable to climate change and will be disproportionately affected by harsher droughts, rising sea levels and fiercer storms, scientists say. The World Bank estimates it will cost $75 billion to $100 billion annually for developing nations to accommodate a world that is warmer by 2 degrees Celsius.

Part of the global climate deal that nations are negotiating in U.N.-sponsored talks in Copenhagen next week involves the promise of substantial funding to help defray those costs.

Just how much money nations will put into the pot remains unknown. That is one of the prickliest questions that negotiators face. Yet while dollar figures -- or absence of them -- grab headlines, analysts say the architecture of the fund is one of the nuts-and-bolts issues fundamental to the climate talks.

"It's certainly a critical part of what needs to be addressed and concluded in the negotiations," said David Waskow, climate change program director at Oxfam America. "At the end of the day ... it's never a just a question about money, but also how the money is governed and spent."

An expected target of $7B to $10B

Countries are expected in Copenhagen to offer between $7 billion and $10 billion for immediate needs in poor countries, with about $1.3 billion expected to come from the United States. The United States has not declared how much it will allocate in the long term. Pizer didn't offer any clues, but said agreeing on a structure for delivering and accounting for the money would be a major step forward.

"I don't think we would be going down this avenue if we didn't see the need for scaling up funding in the future," he said.

Under the proposal the U.S. submitted in October -- which mirrors ideas put forward by Mexico and Australia -- the fund would be governed by a board made up equally of net donors and recipients. All countries except the least-developed nations would be expected to contribute "in accordance with their national circumstances and respective capabilities."

Elliot Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, noted that the proposal reflects "a growing view that some of the faster-growing developing countries are in a position to help," as well as industrialized ones. A number of environmental groups oppose the notion and say only rich countries should be expected to foot the bill for climate change.

In a recent analysis, ActionAid USA, Friends of the Earth US and the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network faulted the proposal for failing to force countries to contribute to the fund. The groups also argue that any money for poor countries to address climate change must be in addition to regular foreign assistance, and call for a board governed by a majority of developing countries.

"This is important so as to mirror the composition of parties in the UNFCCC [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] and to ensure that those most affected by climate change are in the majority on the governing bodies," the groups wrote.

Narrowly focused on easing burdens of climate change

Treasury officials said they envision a fund that can leverage private-sector investments as well as public funds. They described it as one of several financial arrangements available to help developing countries access funds for different needs.

Currently, the Global Environment Facility acts as the financing arm for the UNFCCC. Established within the World Bank, the coalition of 178 international government institutions manages several pots of money for climate change-related activities. Treasury officials said the new proposal still envisions a role for the GEF. But, they said, it would be more narrowly focused on helping developing nations set efficiency standards, regulate power sectors and take other steps to improve their institutions so clean energy projects can thrive.

"We think that if we're going to significantly scale up financing to deal with climate change, we need a different kind of vehicle," Pizer said. "In particular, we need a vehicle that is more focused on financing investments like the ones that are necessary [to address] climate change." A senior GEF official said the institution is not worried that it will be sidelined, but declined to say whether the agency supports the U.S. plan.

"We welcome all the proposals for this discussion," the official said.

The biggest fight, if there is one, will likely center around the involvement of the World Bank. Treasury officials said they believe the World Bank has the expertise, standards and "internal safeguards" to oversee the financing, though the fund would likely have a governing structure separate from the multilateral bank's normal channels.

Environmental activists have long fought the institution, arguing that it favors wealthy nations and funds too much fossil fuel development. But the U.S. proposal is also getting points from some nonprofit groups for taking a major step toward trying to solve one of the more complicated issues in the climate change negotiations.

"Hopefully, we can at least make some headway in developing the architecture," even if the dollar figure is unsettled, Diringer said.

Added Waskow, "It's really important that they've clearly said they support a new global fund for climate. It's the beginnings of building a bridge to developing countries."

Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

WSJ: U.N. Reformer (Really)

April 1, 2008

More than one American has tried to make the United Nations live up to its original ideals -- Pat Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, John Bolton. We'd add to that distinguished list the name of Mark Wallace, an ambassador to the U.S. mission at Turtle Bay who resigned yesterday having tried for two years to make the U.N. a more transparent place.

Mr. Wallace's biggest contribution was exposing the fraud and corruption in U.N. Development Program operations in North Korea. In the wake of his investigation, the then-new Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, was shocked enough to order an external audit of all U.N. programs. It didn't take long for Mr. Ban to backtrack on the extent of his original order, but his subsequent probe of the UNDP in North Korea confirmed Mr. Wallace's findings, as did a Congressional investigation.

Along the way, Mr. Wallace faced hostility from bureaucrats who don't think the country that provides nearly a quarter of the U.N. budget should demand more accountability. The UNDP's shoddy oversight of its North Korea operations is rightly seen as a wake-up call for better governance throughout the U.N. system. Mr. Wallace has lobbied for making internal audits, now secret, available to all member states. He also wants the U.N. to make more information, especially on budgets, available to the general public. And he has pushed for a more effective Ethics Office and protection of whistleblowers.

His record is also a lesson to those American officials who think their obligation is merely to get along at these international institutions. Mr. Wallace was unpopular with certain high State Department officials, who didn't want to risk their engagement with Pyongyang over corruption. He's the one who had it right.