Aid to North Korea?

A recent news story I read said that the United Nations is planning to spend more than $290 million on a number of aid programs in North Korea. Apparently this is part of some negotiating tactic to get the country to accept oversight conditions from the countries that will donate to the cause.

According to the news story:  "The U.N. plans demonstrate the determination of the world organization and its most influential backers -- notably, the U.S. government, which is the biggest single financial supporter of most U.N. aid and development organizations -- to keep dangling carrots of assistance before the North Korean regime."

At t least a dozen U.N. agencies hope to be involved over the next five years in North Korea’s national welfare, in areas ranging from health care and education to sanitation and civil service training. Exactly what that involvement would be was a little vague, as there were no details given of specific programs planned to address  these areas.

I guess the reason I've never gone into diplomatic service is that I don't understand why the U.N. and the U.S. would invest that kind of money into a plan that has no guarantee of success. Even if Kim Jong II accepts the oversight conditions, there is no guarantee that his son, who will probably take over leadership in the near future, will abide by the deal.

That's an awful lot of money to risk on what could be a roll of the dice. And I'm sure there are a lot of hungry people in Africa, Pakistan, and a lot of other places who would like a piece of this  290 million-dollar pie.

For more about the proposed aid CLICK HERE

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By the way, the real reason I haven't gone into diplomatic service is because nobody asked me. But I think I could do a bang up job and I wouldn't waste a lot of money doing it.