EED"s cooperation with North Korea: summarized by Ms Stefani Elbern
With regards to EED"s cooperation with North Korea, we are currently cooperating with the American Friends Services Committee (AFSC). Their project started in 2004, and the coordinating body for AFSC in NK is the Solidarity Committee. The project addresses agricultural development (soil fertility management, irrigation, processing and mechanization development, information exchange, farming supplies etc.) and the local counterparts are scientific institutes and cooperative farms. So far, the main obstacle (from EED"s perspective) lay in the limitation of access to the project sites. AFSC has not always received permission to enter the country for monitoring purposes. However, the project activities as such are progressing well.
Apart from this ongoing cooperation, we have received (through the office of Bishop R. Koppe of the EKD) a proposal from the Korean Christian Federation (KCF) for a very large wind energy plant. This happened in late 2005, and after this first contact, we have tried to suggest to KCF trainings on alternative sources of energy as a starting point for cooperation between our two organisations. This is definitely not the large-style wind energy plant which KCF requested, but the training would be within our means, while the plant -for several resaons- is not a project which we can support. The latest reaction from KCF was contained in a fax to EKD - they affirmed that there were ongoing internal discussions on the possibility to agree to a training. So far, the content, scope, place of the training etc. has not been settled on, and we hope that KCF can join us in designing the training. Our expectation is that KCF will arrange for persons to participate in the training - knowing very well that these persons will not necessarily be KCF (staff) members. We hope that giving KCF the role of a manager in the pre-project coordination will to some degree have positive effects on their standing in North Korea. Still, it remains difficult for us to discuss the endeavour with KCF because communication is only possible through fax. It might be necessary to visit Pyongyang in order to get ahead with the planning process.
Apart from this ongoing cooperation, we have received (through the office of Bishop R. Koppe of the EKD) a proposal from the Korean Christian Federation (KCF) for a very large wind energy plant. This happened in late 2005, and after this first contact, we have tried to suggest to KCF trainings on alternative sources of energy as a starting point for cooperation between our two organisations. This is definitely not the large-style wind energy plant which KCF requested, but the training would be within our means, while the plant -for several resaons- is not a project which we can support. The latest reaction from KCF was contained in a fax to EKD - they affirmed that there were ongoing internal discussions on the possibility to agree to a training. So far, the content, scope, place of the training etc. has not been settled on, and we hope that KCF can join us in designing the training. Our expectation is that KCF will arrange for persons to participate in the training - knowing very well that these persons will not necessarily be KCF (staff) members. We hope that giving KCF the role of a manager in the pre-project coordination will to some degree have positive effects on their standing in North Korea. Still, it remains difficult for us to discuss the endeavour with KCF because communication is only possible through fax. It might be necessary to visit Pyongyang in order to get ahead with the planning process.
Despite all these difficulties, EKD is interested in building up cooperation with KCF, and we as EED will try to arrange a joint project. This is a clear deviation from our general policy - we only act upon concrete requests by partners abroad. The fact that we take into our hands the initiation of a project is a very clear sign of the specific interest in a cooperation with KCF and North Korea
