Poverty in North Korea

North Korean Farmers work for self-sufficiency © Food First / Institute for Food and Development Policy

Although party to the Millennium Declaration, North Korea imposes such restrictions on information that it is impossible to obtain the reliable baseline statistics necessary to measure progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Nor is it clear what policies the country may have formed to achieve the Goals. North Korean representatives were due to attend the Millennium + 5 New York Summit in September 2005, but in the end failed to appear, further preventing the outside world from gauging what progress, if any, has been made since 2000.

It is known that North Korea has a free and extensive health care system, but the quality of care is extremely low due to outdated skills and shortage of drugs. A 2006 Unicef report described the antiquated infrastructure for health services, water and sanitation as in "marginal condition". Similar decline is likely to be found in education facilities.

Development prospects have also deteriorated following the designation of North Korea as a state supportive of terrorism, effectively precluding grants and loans from international finance institutions such as the World Bank. Estimates during 2007 suggested that 30% of adults are underemployed, that the average wage is just $2 per month and that many state sector employees are not paid on a regular basis.

Food Security in North Korea

North Korea: malnutrition © CAFOD

What is certain is that North Korea is not only the poorest country in North Asia, but lacks even the foreign currency necessary to create food security for its people. In average harvests, production of rice and maize is thought to fall short of basic needs by 15%-20%. Harvest failures in the mid-1990s led to a full scale famine in which up to 2 million people died, often described as the worst global humanitarian disaster of that decade.

The traditional sources of food aid have been South Korea, China and the World Food Programme (WFP), their distribution networks often hampered by fickle and opaque government regulations. For a period during 2005/06, North Korea refused all food and fertiliser aid, in deference to the dogma of self-reliance and in denial of a WFP nutritional survey conducted in October 2004 which found that 37% of children suffered stunted growth whilst a third of all mothers were malnourished and anaemic.

An elderly North Korean woman © Mercy Corps

In 2007 WFP reported that "having enough to eat is still a daily struggle for one-third to one-half of all North Koreans". Most people are dependent on the government's Public Distribution System, a notoriously inefficient programme which is supposed to ensure fairness through defined rations but which instead tends to favour elitist groups at the expense of others. The rations themselves typically fall far below the recommended daily calorific intake. In cities people may be able to buy extra food whilst those in the country may enjoy the luxury of a smallholding. Reports of people foraging for wild plants or selling their last possessions for food continue to filter out of the country.

Food stocks in North Korea are at their lowest in the months leading up to harvest in September. Severe floods in 2007 destroyed an estimated 16% of the harvest boosting the need for aid from 1.0 to 1.4 million tons. Given the uncertainty of the acute international political tension over North Korea's nuclear programmes, there is concern amongst development agencies that 2008 will be a particularly difficult year.
The Economy in North Korea

A limited degree of openness can also be found in the economy since market-oriented reforms were launched in 2003; there are now busy markets in Pyongyang and advertisements for consumer goods. Foreign investment and export business is possible. A South Korean conglomerate has built an industrial complex in the North, and it is hoped that this will bring in more foreign currency. Nevertheless, having outperformed the South in the early years, North Korea's GDP for 2006 has been estimated at less than $25 billion, a tiny percentage of the South Korean economy. Part of this figure may be illegal arms sales and contraband. The economy remains centrally planned, reliant on inefficient heavy industry which is handicapped by energy shortages and antiquated machinery. Power supplies are believed to meet only about 25% of the country's requirement.



The OneWorld North Korea Guide was first published in this format in December 2004 with a text written by Volunteer Editor Katie Fish

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