North Korea launches health survey system with UNICEF

REUTERS - North Korea launched a health survey system with UNICEF on Wednesday (June 20) in Pyongyang, state media reported. Video provided by North Korea's official news agency KCNA, which Reuters cannot independently verify, showed Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), Shanelle Hall, and other foreign delegations attending a launch event at Taedonggang Diplomatic Club and looking at photographs of health screening for children and relief supplies on display. The data collected by Pyongyang's Central Bureau of Statistics in 2017 through UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is based on an international methodology, and laid bare some of the hardships in the lives of the population. The United Nations is restricted in the aid it can give to North Korea because of international sanctions, but it can help with nutrition, health, water and sanitation -- as long as it has the basic data on the needs of the people, according to UNICEF.