Go to Body
Search
 
all > North Korea

S. Korea’s local governments can now provide humanitarian aid directly to N. Korea

Posted on : 2019-10-23 17:42 KST Modified on : 2019-10-23 17:42 KST
Unification Ministry revises regulations for humanitarian, inter-Korean projects
South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul (right) and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon pose for a commemorative photograph after signing a pledge to revise policies to allow local governments to send humanitarian aid directly to North Korea at the The Westin Chosun Busan hotel on July 24.
South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul (right) and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon pose for a commemorative photograph after signing a pledge to revise policies to allow local governments to send humanitarian aid directly to North Korea at the The Westin Chosun Busan hotel on July 24.

South Korea’s local governments now have the option of directly providing humanitarian aid to North Korea rather than working through NGOs. 

South Korea’s Unification Ministry announced on Oct. 22 that it had revised rules about humanitarian aid and cooperation projects with North Korea to allow local government bodies to gain approval as operators of North Korean aid programs. 

Prior to this, local governments haven’t been allowed to directly manage humanitarian aid programs for North Korea. As a result, they’ve had to work with NGOs that are accredited as North Korean aid providers and borrow the name of those NGOs when sending aid to the North or submitting applications to the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund. That’s why Gyeonggi Province, for example, has been running North Korean aid programs under the name of the Korean Sharing Movement. 

Since the Unification Ministry’s regulatory revision enables local governments to deal directly with the North, those local governments are expected to expand programs aimed at providing aid to the North or promoting cooperation and exchange there. But that has also prompted concerns that NGOs will have more trouble raising funds, leading to the curtailment of similar programs organized by the private sector. 

This update of the rules follows the adoption of a pledge to devolve North Korean policy from the central government to local governments (called the Pact for Peace and Prosperity on the Korean Peninsula) on July 24. Signed by Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul and Park Won-soon, mayor of Seoul and chair of the Governors Association of Korea, the pledge specified that local governments are legal agents in inter-Korean exchange and cooperation. 

After Kim took office, the Unification Ministry released an authoritative legal interpretation stating that local government bodies can be legal agents in exchange and cooperation. In support of that interpretation, the Ministry cited Article 2 of the Exchange and Cooperation Act, which states that juridical persons (that is, non-human legal entities) can become actors of exchange and cooperation, and Article 3 of the Local Government Act, which states that local government bodies are juridical persons.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer 

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Related stories

Editorial・opinion

Most viewed articles