U.S. grant-making group provides $11 mln for N.K. human rights projects

All News 10:50 January 10, 2020

SEOUL, Jan. 10 (Yonhap) -- The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a congressionally funded U.S. grant-making organization, provided more than US$11.2 million over the past four years to human rights groups working on North Korea, recent data showed.

According to the data released by the NED on Thursday, $11,222,553 was granted to nongovernmental human rights groups in seven different areas between 2016-2019, including funding for freedom of information.

About $5 million was granted to 22 projects designed to provide news to the North Korean public, followed by $2.7 million for human rights projects, while $863,357 was given to NGOs aiming to strengthen the leadership of North Korean defector students in the South and encourage engagement in democracy.

The group granted an average of $2.5 million to NGOs between 2016-2018, but the funding jumped last year to $3.4 million.

The NED is a congressionally funded private group created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts.