SEOUL: The UN food body on Saturday said it had approved $200 million of food aid for North Korea, targeting the country's most vulnerable people who remain dependent on external assistance.
The World Food Programme (WFP) executive board has this week approved a new two-year operation for North Korea starting on July 1, WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said.
"It will target about 2.4 million people - almost all children, and pregnant and nursing women - with about 207,000 metric tons of food assistance at a cost of US$200 million," he said in an email to AFP.
The WFP will continue to focus on the nutritional needs of young children and their mothers through food which will be manufactured in the North using ingredients imported by the food body, he said.
"WFP remains very concerned about the long-term intellectual and physical development of young children in particular who are malnourished due to a diet lacking in key proteins, fats and micronutrients," added Prior.
Overall production for the main 2012 harvest and early season crops this year was expected to reach 5.8 million tonnes, up 10 percent on 2011-2012, UN agencies said in November.
But the poverty-stricken country is still struggling to eradicate malnutrition and provide its people with vital protein, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and WFP said.
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