UN Commission for Social Development: North Korea
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"Severely malnourished North Korean children." Source: North Korea Freedom Coalition |
Mission of the Commission for Social Development: "...the Commission has been the key UN body in charge of the follow-up and implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action....Each year since 1995, the Commission has taken up key social development themes as part of its follow-up to the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit. These themes are...Promoting full employment and decent work for all...Improving public sector effectiveness....National and international cooperation for social development...Integration of social and economic policy..." (
Commission for Social Development web-site)
Term of office: 2007-2009 North Korea's Record on Social Development: "...severe economic mismanagement resulted in a famine in the 1990s that killed at least a million people. In addition, as many as 300,000 North Koreans fled to China in search of food or wages to assist their families at home, despite a legal ban on leaving the DPRK. In 1995, North Korea ended its self-imposed isolation and allowed the United Nations and private humanitarian aid organizations from Europe, North America, and South Korea to undertake what was, at that point, one of the world's largest famine relief operations...In 2006, the DPRK ordered Europe-based private humanitarian agencies to leave after the European Union sponsored UN resolutions condemning North Korea's human rights violations. Also in 2006, the regime attempted to revive the Public Distribution System and again prohibited grain sales in markets. There is little expectation of additional far-reaching market reforms, as the government seems opposed to any measures that would grant North Koreans greater personal autonomy and potentially undermine the dictatorship's tight grip on power. Human rights and humanitarian aid organizations warn of ongoing malnutrition and the threat of renewed famine." (Freedom House Country Report on North Korea 2007)