North Korea: Politicising Humanitarian Aid Dynamics

The North Korean humanitarian aid case is problematical due to high strategic importance of the DPRK. The intricate security environment on the Korean peninsular ends up with humanitarian initiatives negatively prejudiced by political events (the DPRK nuclear programme, missile launches, border controversies, foreign citizens’ abductions, etc.). The political and security issues determined international approaches and changed attitude to the county as to the aid recipient. Dissimilar motivations and approaches to humanitarian aid by international donors from several regions have opened up the door to uncoordinated and incoherent donorship, inefficient in time, quality and lacking of mechanisms of control. Competition over influencing the North Korean political regime between global and regional powers has resulted in hampering policy coordination for establishing efficient aid networks. More recently, the emergence of China and Russia as international donors has often been met with a certain degree of suspicion by the USA. The humanitarian (mainly, food) aid issue became negotiation leverage, which resulted in the politicization of aid in general. Finally, politicizing humanitarian problem especially rivaled private NGOs, since it undermined their independence from the State. it is for this reason that the UN World Food Program was the major aid supplier to the DPRK. The paper addresses the issue humanitarian assistance to North Korea, making a vibrant distinction between external assistance by foreign states (including international organizations’ assistance) and non-state humanitarian organizations (the NGOs). One of the main arguments is that aid donors’ strategic interactions at the international level play the decisive role in humanitarian aid dynamics regarding North Korea. The humanitarian intentions of states as donors are extremely politicized in the North Korean case, while intents and motivations of politicizing/avoiding politicizing) aid delivery of non-government agencies are not homogeneous.