22 September, 2017
The MOU said the aid was approved based on the government's position that "humanitarian aid is continuously pursued as being separated from political situations to improve humanitarian situation and quality of life of North Korean people".
The inter-Korean exchange and cooperation committee were chaired by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon to approve the provision of 8 million dollars to the projects of the World Food Program (WFP) and the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) for infants and pregnant women in the North Korea.
The Lee Myung-bak and the Park government did not send humanitarian aid through global organizations in 2010 and 2016, but did provide funding, via worldwide organizations and third parties, between 2011 and 2015 - with funding peaking in 2014 at KRW14.1 billion (USD$12,445,788).
"Through his speech, President Moon drew an worldwide consensus for sanctions, pressure and the denuclearization of North Korea, and he created an opportunity to move toward peace", Woo Won-shik, the party whip, said during a meeting with senior party officials.
While the decision to release funds for humanitarian programmes for infants and pregnant women risks rift with hardliners USA and Japan, a break with the hardline policy is needed to foster moves for a reunification of the two Koreas.
"We will proceed with [deciding] the actual timing and size of aid considering comprehensively the overall conditions including the inter-Korean relations".
U.S. and Japan regard any engagement with North Korea as a concession to a regime which is accelerating nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
The last time South Korea provided humanitarian aid to North Korea through an worldwide agency was in December 2015, when it gave $800,000 to the U.N. Population Fund project to evaluate North Korean public health conditions.
Unicef's regional director for East Asia and the Pacific, Karin Hulshof, said North Korean children faced problems that were "all too real". "Food and essential medicines and equipment to treat young children are in short supply".
His predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate credited for his Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North, offered $55.38 million from 1998 to 2003, which includes 1999 and 2000, when South Korea could not offer any assistance due to the International Monetary Fund crisis. The U.N. assesses that 18 million of the 25 million North Koreans are experiencing varying levels of food shortages and the country also suffers from high child and maternal mortality rates.
In a statement that no doubt ratcheted tensions on the Korean Peninsula, China's foreign minister once again demanded the removal of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system from South Korea.
