Ong En Corea Del Norte

Introduction


Since 1996, North Korea population has been the focus of a global humanitarian effort to minimize the tragic human victims of persistent food shortages and health crisis. More than thirty governments, 130 non-governmental institutions, private voluntary humanitarian relief organizations, and major international relief organizations hascontributed to this campaign. Combined contributions from 1995 to 2001 amounts to nearly 6 million metric tons of food worth one million dollars, also assistance in the areas of public health, agricultural recovery and development, sanitation and education have been increased. During all those years, the organizations have learned by practice and error, how to aid the 22 million North Koreans, despitethe incursion of the government. This paper will try to explain how the aid is given and what are the challenges within this closed nation.NGO Experience in North Korea
Prior describing the most important projects realized in North Korea by the humanitarian community, I would like to point out the types of funding mechanisms various NGOs used atthe very beginning to aid North Korea.

Public Campaigns: Humanitarian aid organizations have used media campaigns to engender public sympathy and get donations or volunteering work. The DPRK was very sensitive about this, because the media usually portray images of starving children. The DPRK is very conscious about the international image, and this would be a nationalembarrassment.

Conveyance NGOs: These organizations work closely with the U.S government and they rely on funding or supplies by the U.S government grants. The lack of negotiation between the two governments led the U.S government to link food aid with North Korean actions. The result was de deprivation of NGOs of any real negotiating leverage on the ground.Religious NGOs: This group has a smaller scope but was more effective with the DPRK to negotiate and respond more directly to needs as they arose, because their programs are aside from political considerations and did now attract media attention.

Background
In 1980, leaders from Asian-American and Korean-American communities in the UnitedStates began visiting North Korea. Most of these trips aimed to find and help lost relatives. Some of them made occasional visits to the capital city taking small amounts of money, medicine and clothing to their family. Representatives of various organizations led several groups to Pyongyang to persuade United States-DPRK reconciliation. Others represented academic institutions and their purposewas to facilitate educational exchange, with some North Koreans visiting United States. However the constraints between the two governments and regulations complicated these pioneering efforts of opening the doors of both nations, including the sanctions of the U.S government on North Korea, or the expensive costs and difficulty to get entry visas to North Korea. Also, the Cold War played abig constraint, because had yet to end in the Korean peninsula. This created a narrow passage to the lucky ones who had a visa to enter the country.
The U.S NGOs came to North Korea with different perceptions, mostly by the experience gained in South Korea and other countries in South East Asia, but they would soon faced an entirely new set of challenges. They will find a country...