Gerald Bourke Quotations

Until donors are happy, they're not going to be too inclined to resource the operation.

Our view is that, yes, the humanitarian situation in the North has improved, but not to the extent to which the country can do without humanitarian aid.

Part of the problem is with our monitoring people moving around the country, ... This is and has been a concern for them.

We hope to arrive at a mutually satisfactory set of operating procedures. If that doesn't happen, it will be hard to get commodities from our donors.

We believe there is still short and medium-term needs as well as long-term needs.

We're the honest broker in the middle, and we'll try to achieve a solution that's satisfactory to both sides. We hope that some donors will support development aid in 2006 and beyond.

The government of North Korea has made it very clear that it no longer wants our emergency food aid. It's a sovereign country, and we must respect that position.

North Korea has a substantial and chronic food deficit,

They're going up into the mountains in search of edible grasses. They're on the beaches collecting seaweed,

They asked us to go back to the government and seek better conditions. We will not resume until we have a satisfactory set of operating conditions agreed with the government.

Their were 25 pupils and only three of them has any meat in the last month. Very occasionally an egg, a little bit of vegetable and that's it.

In the most basic sense, development aid is anything that is an investment in the future.

The donors on the executive board expressed pretty serious concern about the operating conditions that were on offer and gave us a mandate to try and better them.