By Lee Tae-hoon
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Wednesday that North Korea is the 11th largest recipient of its emergency funds in the world, and third in Asia.
Pyongyang received $13.4 million or 3.6 percent of the $372 million that the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated from January through September.
CERF, established in 2006, is a U.N. fund created to aid regions threatened by starvation and natural disasters.
Pakistan, which suffered catastrophic floods in August, received 40 million, the largest allocation in CERF’s history, followed by Haiti, Niger and Congo.
Sri Lanka, which received $13.8 million, placed second among Asian recipient countries.
North Korea ranks 173 among 177 countries on the human development index, according to the Human Development Report 2007/2008, published by the U.N.
The U.N. estimates that five out of 1,000 children in the North die before they reach the age of five.
Experts say some 23 percent of North Korean children under five were malnourished between 2000 and 2007 and 32 percent of the population in the Stalinist regime was undernourished between 2003 and 2005.
Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Program (WFP), claims that the U.N.’s flagship agency is falling short of funds to feed hungry people in the impoverished and reclusive nation.
The WFP received $106.2 million, the largest amount among aid agencies, from CERF in 2010, followed by UNICEF, which received 86.1 million.
The WFP claims that it can only help a quarter of the 2.5 million North Korean children suffering from malnourishment due to a shortage of funds.
The WFP helps feed some 670,000 people, mainly children in the communist North.
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