WFP BEGINS PHASEOUT OF DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA OPERATIONS DUE TO LACK OF FUNDS
Press Release
WFP/1023
WFP BEGINS PHASEOUT OF DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA OPERATIONS DUE TO LACK OF FUNDS
19951220 ROME, 20 December (WFP) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) announced today that it had begun phasing out its humanitarian relief operations in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea due to poor donor response to its appeal for funds to help the more than 500,00 victims of last summer's devastating floods.Three of WFP's four resident expatriate staffers in Pyongyang are departing the country today (Wednesday). The fourth staffer will remain in the capital until mid-January, but will have to leave unless significant funding is received before then.
The food aid arm of the United Nations, WFP last month became the first -- and to date, only -- international humanitarian agency to establish a resident office in Pyongyang after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued an unprecedented appeal to the world for help in aiding the victims of its worst flooding in 100 years.
While several countries, notably Japan, Switzerland, Thailand and Denmark, have made significant donations, WFP is currently the only organization in the country with the capacity to monitor the distribution of food aid to ensure that it reaches those most in need -- the roughly 100,000 farming families displaced by the flooding that also devastated the country's grant harvest this year. The victims include not only women and the elderly, but some 55,000 children under the age of five who, already weakened and severely malnourished, must now confront the onset of a bitterly cold winter without food or, in many cases, adequate shelter.
Using its own resources, WFP delivered an initial shipment of 5,140 tons of rice to the country on 24 November. Due to an unprecedented agreement signed on 9 November, WFP was able to monitor the shipment's delivery and distribution "every step of the way to ensure that it reached its intended recipients", a WFP spokesman said.
But despite such assurances and increasingly urgent appeals for help, donor States have to date contributed only $505,000 of the $8.8 million needed to fulfil WFP's initial commitment to provide enough rice and vegetable oil to meet the minimal food requirements of the flood victims for 90 days.
- 2 - Press Release WFP/1023 20 December 1995
"While poor donor response has forced us to begin phasing out our operations in North Korea, we still hope that we can phase them in again if the international community responds to our appeals for help before January 20, the date when our pullout will be complete", the spokesman said.
A joint WFP/Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) assessment team has just returned from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and is now preparing a report on the extent of the humanitarian disaster and the country's current food aid needs. The team has already documented widespread malnutrition among children and the onset of famine conditions in the worst hit provinces of Changang, North Pyongan and North Hwanghae.
"In this holiday season, when much of the world is celebrating the joy of giving, it will be a shameful irony if we are forced to walk away from a major humanitarian tragedy simply because of insufficient funding", the spokesman said.
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