Author Bio | NK News - North Korea News
Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings
Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings is a Lecturer in Humanitarian Studies at Deakin University's Centre for Humanitarian Leadership. Her research interests include the DPRK, humanitarian aid, disaster management and civil society.
ANALYSIS17 FEBRUARYBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Givers, receivers, and beneficiaries: who benefits from aid to North Korea?
Humanitarian aid, as a general principle, aims to reduce human suffering wherever it is found. While from one lens this goal seems altruistic, noble, and born from a deep-seated respect for humanity, it can also have other motives. Aid agencies and donors may have other impetuses that inspire them to take action in a certain context. Some of these motivations may be relatively benign – a mem...
ANALYSIS13 DECEMBERBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Humanitarian response in the DPRK: which North Koreans are “vulnerable”?
Humanitarian organisations have been present in North Korea for over two decades. Initially, humanitarian response from international organisations like the United Nations (UN), the Red Cross, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on famine relief. But as the DPRK has changed since the mid-1990s, humanitarian needs have also transformed. While no longer in the grips of famine, ...
ANALYSIS12 JULYBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
The implications – and limitations – of UNICEF’s recent North Korea survey
Eight years after the last Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), UNICEF and the North Korean government last month released the results of the 2017 MICS. The survey is based on questionnaires, interviews, and data from 8499 households in all nine provinces, plus Pyongyang. The MICS methodology and system is designed to create data that can be used for international comparison, as well as m...
26 MARCHBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Budget cuts and travel restrictions: how U.S. policy is failing North Koreans
Scholars, activists, analysts, politicians, and diaspora communities around the world have for years debated the most effective way to positively impact the lives of average North Koreans. Human rights activists argue in favor of spreading information and typically eschew working with the regime. Instead, they claim underground methods, like smuggling USB sticks loaded with information from th...
ANALYSIS11 DECEMBERBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
The challenges of evaluating humanitarian aid to North Korea
Evaluations are a key component of humanitarian aid delivery. Donors in particular – but also aid agencies, host governments, and aid recipient communities – want to know if projects are effective and efficient. But across the globe, evaluations are difficult to implement. This is no different in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), where some unique circumstances further exa...
ACADEMIA19 NOVEMBERBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Balancing act: humanitarian aid versus human rights activism
Amidst tension, harsh rhetoric, and a focus on nuclear issues and security, the human element of North Korea sometimes seems cast aside. Approximately 25 million people live in the DPRK. Various groups and scholars have espoused ways to advocate for the best interests of ordinary North Koreans, but how do approaches differ? And what is the best way to really help the people? North Korea wat...
Illusion of independence: North Korea’s “civil organizations” and NGOs
Non-state-led collective action is an anathema to the country's politics - but progress is happening
by Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings
12 October 2017 Last updated at 02:52
How the U.S.’s North Korea travel ban politicizes humanitarian aid
The need for State Department approval of aid projects risks undermining NGO independence
by Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings
13 September 2017 Last updated at 02:10
ANALYSIS21 JULYBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Helping hand: Humanitarian aid in North Korea, short and long term
Discussion on North Korea can oscillate from fixating on the short term, i.e. what will Trump’s response be to the latest missile test, to the long term, i.e. how to prepare for reunification. During the famine of the mid-1990s - which killed an estimated one million Koreans - humanitarians and other members of the international community often focused on the short term: how could the outsid...
ANALYSIS12 JULYBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Can aid workers in North Korea help improve local human rights?
The most common examples of humanitarian aid include deliveries of food aid, relief supplies, nutritional supplements, and medicines, as well as the dispatching of healthcare workers, disaster risk reduction experts, and others with knowledge that can help communities heal while building capacity. But less tangible facets of humanitarian aid exist as well, and humanitarian protection is an exam...
ANALYSIS04 MAYBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
The “Do No Harm” principle and its application in North Korea
Do No Harm is a concept in humanitarian action that encourages aid deliverers to examine how their aid might reinforce and support conflict. The idea is encapsulated in Mary B. Anderson’s 1999 book of the same name where the author cites an example of a situation where aid may have caused harm taking place in Sudan. In the example, an aid agency responds to a factional split by building...
ANALYSIS14 MARCHBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
True believers: Faith-based NGOs in North Korea
North Korea is known for its government's lack of tolerance towards religion. Defectors have described the torture and execution of Christians, and the UN reports that North Koreans repatriated from China face harsher punishments if they are known to have interacted with Christians. Some scholars and observers draw parallels between the Kim regime’s cult of personality and religion, ranging ...
ACADEMIA06 DECEMBERBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Aid from the enemy: American and S. Korean NGOs in the DPRK
Since opening up to international humanitarian aid in 1995, North Korea has allowed at least 215 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to run projects in the country. These groups come from all over the globe, and have engaged in a diverse range of work, from one-off shipments of material aid to long-term projects aimed at strengthening capacities. The vast majority of NGOs that have work...
07 OCTOBERBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
The perils and positives of residency in North Korea as an NGO
In the summer of 1995, North Korea released its first wide-scale appeal for international humanitarian aid. The DPRK was in the midst of a famine caused largely by structural factors, but could conveniently lay blame on a series of natural disasters that had unfolded in the mid-1990s. As a result, international organizations, bilateral mechanisms, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) began pr...
ANALYSIS08 SEPTEMBERBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Aid in North Korea and the four humanitarian principles
The humanitarian community often refers to its four guiding principles: humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. Known as the humanitarian principles, they are derived from the core principles of the Red Cross. Humanity refers to the need to relieve human suffering. Neutrality dictates that humanitarians should not take sides in conflict. The principle of impartiality refers to th...
28 APRILBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Diversion no reason to oppose aid to North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) made its first wide-scale appeal for international humanitarian aid in 1995, while in the midst of a famine. International organizations (IOs), such as United Nations (UN) bodies and the Red Cross, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and bilateral state aid came in to assist the DPRK government in providing basic needs for its pe...
ANALYSIS28 MARCHBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
How Cold War assistance shaped N.Korea’s view of aid
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been a chronic aid recipient since its foundation. It has received a wide range of assistance from foreign states: from Chinese “volunteers” who fought in the Korean War, to friendly trade terms with the Soviet Union, to one of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) largest humanitarian aid appeals. This seems at odds with the DPRK’s Juch...
ANALYSIS19 FEBRUARYBY NAZANIN ZADEH-CUMMINGS
Humanitarian and development aid in N.Korea: Continuums and contiguums
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