Korea: The rates of child malnutrition in North Korea have fallen in the last two years, a survey by the United Nations shows, but more than a third still don't have enough to eat and the isolated Stalinist state still needs food aid.
The UN survey showed that the proportion of young children chronically malnourished has fallen from 42 per cent to 37 per cent, while acute malnutrition, or wasting, has declined from 9 per cent to 7 per cent.
"Food aid improves the lives of people in North Korea," Richard Ragan, World Food Programme country director for North Korea told a news conference in Beijing. "The progress we've made has been steady and hopefully we can continue to gain ground. Now is not the time to back off from it."
The proportion of children under six found to be underweight rose from 21 per cent to 23 per cent, but the rate among one- to two-year-olds, who are the most nutritionally vulnerable, fell from 25 per cent to 21 per cent.
North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 24 million people since it revealed in the mid-1990s that production at its state-run farms had collapsed following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.
This year the World Food Programme will still require 500,000 tonnes of food for programmes to feed 6.5 million people, mostly children, pregnant women and the elderly, said Mr Ragan.
The survey of child and maternal nutrition looked at 4,800 children under six years of age and 2,109 mothers with children under two across seven of the DPRK's nine provinces and in the capital, Pyongyang.
Pierrette Vu Thi, the UNICEF representative in the country, warned against complacency.
She said one-third of mothers were still malnourished and anaemic, which are key factors contributing to child malnutrition. This was an area of concern, she said, as it indicated no progress over the past two years.