Norms and Realities of Applying the Aid Discourse on Fragile States to North Korea Jiyoun Park* This article aims to identify aid discourses as applied to the North Korean case, and examines whether or not international assistance has been promptly delivered. The aid discourse on fragile states in accordance with the New Deal, which focuses on strengthening a recipient country’s foundation of development by alleviating its fragility, is deemed to be the relevant discourse because the international community considers North Korea to be a fragile state. However, the corresponding norms have not been applied by major international donors in the delivery and disbursement of aid to North Korea, despite its fragile state status and in spite of the fact that its fragility has not declined and is still perceived to be critical. Key words: aid discourse, fragile states, international assistance, North Korea, the New Deal Introduction O n August 23, 1995, North Korea requested emergency assistance from the United Nations (UN) Department of Humanitarian Affairs through the UN representative, including the dispatch of medical teams from the World Health Organization. In response to this request, the international community began providing aid to North Korea, and assistance has continued every year now, for around 20 years. Most researches conclude that the assistance to North Korea as having been effective. The representative assessment reports (such as FAO/WFP, 2004; UNDP, 2007; UNICEF, 2006, 2007, 2008; and others) focused on the assistance projects of the respective institutions, and positively evaluated the effectiveness of assistance to North Korea at the microscopic level of project performance. J. S. Kim (2010), Jonggab Kim (2005), and K. S. Lee (2001) *Jiyoun Park is a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for North Korea Develop- ment, the Import-Export Bank of Korea. She received her PhD from the Ewha Womans University (ROK) following an MA from the University of York (UK). The opinions and analyses expressed in the article are personal views of the author and do not represent the positions of any organization or government that she may be affiliated with. Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 8, Number 4—Pages 559–574 V C 2016 Policy Studies Organization. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.