WASHINGTON - Humanitarian groups are continuing to face complications, including funding shortfalls, when delivering aid to North Korea as the U.S. maintains its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign on the country.
The to five humanitarian organizations earlier this month, raising the to 21.
Humanitarian agencies said sanctions placed on North Korea have created complications for aid groups that need to secure funds and deliver assistance to the country.
In order to deliver assistance in North Korea, U.S. charities need to secure approvals from the U.S. Commerce Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee, and American relief workers are required to obtain special travel passports from the State Department to travel to North Korea, according.
Daniel Jasper, public education and advocacy coordinator for Asia at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), said the State Department held a roundtable session with U.S. and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in January to discuss sanctions regulations and travel restrictions.
“In the absence of a comprehensive agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, we are hoping the U.S. will tweak existing regulations to help improve conditions for humanitarian operation,” Jasper told VOA.
He said steps that sanctions regulators could take to help improve humanitarian operations include “issuing a ‘white list’ of acceptable goods to expedite approval process, issuing a more comprehensive general license that permits ongoing and well-established humanitarian programs to carry on without the need for additional approvals, and working with banks to create a ‘white channel’ to help expedite program funding.”
In the meantime, , a U.S. aid group approved with an exemption this month, left for North Korea on Saturday for a three-week humanitarian mission, according to Heidi Linton, the organization’s executive director who spoke with VOA's Korean Service last week before the group departed. The North Carolina-based group works with “TB, hepatitis and pediatric care centers … and engages on projects such as solar-gravity water system installations, renovations of care centers, and hepatitis treatment clinics," according to its website.
The U.S. refused to lift sanctions on North Korea in February when the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, asked President Donald Trump to remove them during talks at the Hanoi summit. The since 2016, following its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!
Trump said on Friday in a tweet that he is against imposing “additional large-scale sanctions” on North Korea.
Pierre Peron, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Bangkok regional office, said, “While Security Council sanctions imposed on the country clearly exempt humanitarian activities, humanitarian agencies continue to face serious unintended consequence on their programs, such as lack of funding, the absence of a banking channel for humanitarian transfers and challenges to the delivery of humanitarian supplies.”
According to Peron, sanctions make donors more cautious about funding operational costs. He said suppliers of humanitarian goods take a “risk-averse approach” because of the complicated regulatory requirements, delays in port clearance, higher expenses and “reputational risks” associated with delivering humanitarian aid to North Korea.
North Korea is “one of the lowest-funded [countries] in the world,” according to 2019 , a report issued earlier this month by the United Nations.
With an estimated 11 million men, women and children lacking sufficient nutritious food, clean drinking water, or access to basic health and sanitation services, Peron said in 2018 North Korea received less than half of the $111 million that international humanitarian agencies deemed necessary.
This year, the U.N. is appealing for $120 million to cover aid for the most vulnerable 3.8 million North Koreans.
“The low level of funding is impacting operations,” said Peron. “Agencies have been forced to scale back essential programing… seriously compromising the delivery of basic humanitarian interventions that are crucial to safeguard the lives of the most vulnerable.”