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2017 International Conference on Humanitarian and Development Assistance to the DPRK

Despite the ongoing nuclear and missile crisis the hopes for a peaceful solution on the Korean Peninsula are still high, in particular since the administration of Moon Jae-In took power.

Panel on development aid vs humanitarian aid

Once a year the Gyeonggi province, Jeju province and the Korean Sharing Movement, together with the excellent colleagues from German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, hold a large forum on humanitarian and development assistance for North Korea.

This year Dr. Bernhard Seliger, representative of Hanns-Seidel-Foundation in Korea, was invited to discuss at a panel perspectives of cooperation for sustainable development. To restart cooperation between North and South, it is not enough simply to return to the pre-2008 policies in South Korea. The new leadership and advances in military technology and strategic thinking make it much more difficult for South Korea to convince North Korea of the benefits of peaceful relations. In particular, capacity-building seems still to be an important and also feasible way to cooperation between both sides, in particular in the framework of international meetings and in cooperation with international partners like IO or international NGO.