The Impact of Korean conflict on the aid activities in North Korea

The Impact of Korean conflict on the aid activities in North Korea

North Korea is well into its second decade of chronic food shortages. A famine in the 1990s killed as many as one million North Koreans or roughly five percent of the population. North Korean claims that the famine was due primarily to natural disasters and external shocks are misleading in important respects. The decline in food production and the deterioration of the public distribution system (PDS) were visible years before the floods of 1995. Moreover, the government was culpably slow to take the necessary steps to guarantee adequate food supplies. With plausible policy adjustments—such as maintaining food imports on commercial terms or aggressively seeking multilateral assistance—the government could have avoided the famine and the shortages that continue to plague the country.

By admin in Essays on July 31, 2016