United Nations Radio

Food shortages are nothing new for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. And according to a spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP), Lena Savelli, North Koreans traditionally have learned to cope. But now, with a 500 million dollar appeal only 15 percent funded, Ms. Savelli tells UN Radio's Patrick Maigua that WFP is concerned about the impact of food shortages on the health and nutrition of the population:

The World Food Programme is currently reaching about 1.5 million North Koreans, mainly children in institutions and hospitals and pregnant and nursing women. We had originally hoped to feed as many as 6.2 million North Koreans, but unfortunately we have not received sufficient contributions to maintain such a large program.

When you say you have not received enough contribution, what do you have in your kitty right now?

Well our program when it was launched was valued at $500 million, a very large operation. We have received against this appeal about $75 million, which makes it about 15 percent funded. This has of course had an impact on the World Food Programme operations.

Is it clear why donors are reluctant to fund your operations in DPRK?

No, that would be a question for the donors. WFP has briefed the donor community, several times about what the needs are. We did an assessment last year together with our sister agency FAO, which indicated the large need for food assistance, as many as 8.7 million people being in need. We have received contributions from quite a large number of donors, generous such, which we are grateful for, but the size of the operations is simple so big that more contributions would have been needed to sustain the level of operation we had intended.

So with only 15 percent of what you wanted so far received how long do you think you can sustain your operations?

Well, due to the limited amount of resources we have received, the World Food Programme will be scaling back its operations quite drastically.

And finally when you are saying you are going to scale back the operation, what will happen to the population? How do you foresee them going forward?

We do think this could result in higher malnutrition rates in the population. DPR Koreans as we have seen over the years are very industrious. They work hard. They have several coping mechanisms that they turn to to overcome food shortages, collecting wild foods, trading with relatives from rural areas, cutting down the numbers of meal. Many of these strategies however are damaging for the health and well being of particularly small children. And coping strategies can only take them so far.

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