lan Fowler, a prominent scholar on civil society once remarked, “it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that civil society is a level playing field and the new salvation of development, but civil society is a messy arena of competing claims and interests between groups that do not necessarily like each other”. When it comes to improving the living conditions of the North Korean people, nothing could be truer. The current debate with regards to whether to allocate food aid to North Korea is just one of the latest examples. Yet, we all want the well-being of