1. The Foreign Ministry, together with the World Food Programme (WFP), will put into full gear in 2015 its development cooperation project for food security in Cuba.

◦ At the meeting of the WFP Executive Board held at the WFP headquarters in Rome, Italy, on February 9 and 10, the government delegation from the Republic of Korea, a member of the Executive Board, agreed with the WFP to conduct a food security project for Cuba worth a total of three million US dollars from 2015 till 2017. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on February 10 which aims mainly to implement the ROK-WFP cooperation project for increasing food productivity and eradicating poverty in Cuba.

2. The aforementioned WFP food security project carries great significance as the first-ever development cooperation project with Cuba on the government level.

3. In November 2014, the ROK Foreign Ministry, via the World Health Organization (WHO), offered personal protective equipment (PPE) worth some one million US dollars to Cuban medical personnel dispatched to Sierra Leone for the fight against the Ebola epidemic. The ROK-WFP food security project, a development cooperation project to be conducted for Cuba together with an international organization, is expected to have considerable impact on the ROK-Cuba relations.

◦ In particular, as part of the WFP food security project for Cuba, a food provision project for the vulnerable brackets as well as a project for establishing a foundation for food independence in the country will be conducted as well. As such, the WFP project is expected to make meaningful contributions to socio-economic development of Cuba, which expressed a high hope for its success.

4. At the WFP headquarters on February 11, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Italy Bae Jae-hyun and WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin formally signed the ROK-WFP Partnership Framework Agreement. The agreement terminates the bilateral Basic Agreement concerning Assistance from the WFP concluded in 1968 when the ROK was receiving food assistance from the body; and calls mainly for forging a new partnership between the ROK, a donor country, and the WFP.

◦ Executive Director Cousin brought renewed attention to the fact that the WFP had extended to the ROK more than 100 million US dollars in emergency food assistance over a period of 20-odd years starting from the 1960s. Calling the ROK-WFP Partnership Framework Agreement symbolic of the standing of the ROK that has already grown as an important donor country in the international community, she expressed her high expectation and interest in building strategic cooperative ties with the ROK government down the road.

◦ The ROK government, in implementing humanitarian aid diplomacy in the future, will actively use its relations with the WFP and other relevant international organizations. The ROK’s service on the WFP Executive Board and the conclusion of the Partnership Framework Agreement with the WFP are expected to serve as significant foundations for the country in implementing humanitarian aid diplomacy. 


                Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

* unofficial translation