Donors of Humanitarian and Development Assistance to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

With the outbreak of famine in the mid-1990s, the DPRK has become a recipient of humanitarian assistance. Immediately after the inception of aid flows, an extensive diversification of donors arose. The most important donor duo was the Republic of Korea and the USA. Japan, Russia, and the European U...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lenka Kudláčová
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institute of International Relations Prague 2014-06-01
Series:Czech Journal of International Relations
Subjects:
Online Access:https://cjir.iir.cz/index.php/cjir/article/view/295
Description
Summary:With the outbreak of famine in the mid-1990s, the DPRK has become a recipient of humanitarian assistance. Immediately after the inception of aid flows, an extensive diversification of donors arose. The most important donor duo was the Republic of Korea and the USA. Japan, Russia, and the European Union all had important roles in the matter, and Switzerland had a very specific role in it. Meanwhile, the Chinese assistance obtained an entirely unique position. There was a temporary suspension of China’s assistance in the mid-1990s, but then it started again, and today, China is the DPRK’s patron. The aim of this article is to provide a comparison of the donors’ strategies and to outline the main trends of the assistance to the DPRK in the framework of the period of 1995–2012. The strategies of donorship have divergent tendencies, and in most of the cases, the donors preferred to make a strong effort to reach their political goals in the DPRK while providing humanitarian aid to it.
ISSN:0323-1844
2570-9429