1. Need, Aid, and Root Causes: The Appropriateness of Humanitarian Response in the DPRK
- Author:
- Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- East Asia Institute (EAI)
- Abstract:
- Humanitarian aid carries connotations of emergency, urgent response, and acute threats to human morbidity, mortality, and dignity. Despite the end of the famine emergency since the mid-1990s, however, the DPRK has continued to receive international humanitarian aid. This article argues that while concepts of development and humanitarianism highlight the challenges to bringing structural change in the DPRK, the long-term nature of need in the DPRK does not signal an inappropriate match with humanitarian aid. In a sanctioned and highly politicised environment with questions of denuclearisation and human rights abuses, seeking to improve daily lives is an inherently structural act. Without structural changes, acute needs have and likely will continue even in times of non-emergency.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Famine, Human Security, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Asia and North Korea