Initial Allegations about UNDP’s North Korea Programme


In December of 2006 and January of 2007 UNDP and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) exchanges a series of letters about UNDP’s operations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). A letter from USUN to UNDP on January 16, 2007, alleged that UNDP’s programme in North Korea had been “systematically perverted” and that UNDP had served as a “steady and large source of hard currency” for the North Korean government with “minimal or no assurance that UNDP funds and resources are used for legitimate development activities”. This letter formed the basis of a prominent article in the Wall Street Journal on 19 January.

UNDP addressed the allegations via a 22 January letter to its Executive Board.

Further allegations, including that UNDP had transferred “up to $150 million in hard foreign currency” and had regularly passed envelopes stuffed with cash to the North Korean government were carried in a front page article by the Chicago Tribune on 11 March 2007.