True to Form, World Food Program Caves in to NK Demands

When she’s not exposing the U.N.’s corruption, Claudia Rosett is exposing its general fecklessness and worthlessness on matters of substance. Ms. Rosett’s favorite case-in-point is North Korea, where she nails – dead-on – what’s wrong with the World Food Program’s approach to feeding the hungry. North Korea, unrestrained by any regard for the lives of its less-privileged citizens, pushes for more control over the food and less U.N. monitoring. The U.N. bureaucrats lack the testicular fortitude to push back, go public, and really embarrass the states that are giving North Korea its diplomatic cover. Instead, they’re now trying to further water down their already weak monitoring and control over aid, making it easier than ever for the regime to divert that aid to its own misuse (this was the point I tried to make to Amb. Bolton last November). The U.N.’s euphemism for this – borrowed from the North Koreans – is “development aid,” which we can suppose will consist of such dual-use items as fertilizer, fuel, tractor engines, pesticides, and cash.

The WFP’s policies are thus increasingly at odds with a code of conduct agreed on by multiple NGOs years ago. That code demands strict monitoring of aid to prevent discrimination and political misuse. The latest U.N. capitulation will be observed with great interest by warlords and tyrants everywhere.  The United States, via Andrew Natsios, has already stated that it will have no part of such a “development aid” scheme. It’s difficult to imagine Congress funding such an aid program without very strict monitoring of how U.S. aid is used; Congress has even passed a nonbinding resolution to that effect (Sec. 202).

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