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You're watching UNICEF Television.

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UNICEF representative in Democratic People's Republic of Korea,

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Gopalan Balagopal, discusses UNICEF's work for the country's children and women.

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We've just launched our new three-year country program,

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which was approved by the UNICEF board in January.

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This program seeks to build on some solid developments in the past few years.

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The activities that we've been doing have helped improve the nutritional status of both children and women.

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We also have a large health program.

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We immunize all the children.

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We have immunization rates which touch 97 percent,

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one of the highest in the East Asia Pacific region.

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And we provide vitamin supplements.

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We treat children who have acute levels of malnutrition.

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We provide clean water.

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We provide sanitation.

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And we have some quite exciting new developments in these areas

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as well as in the interventions that we do for education of children.

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For the first time last year, DPRK participated in the East Asia Learning Assessment

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where, along with other countries in the East Asia Pacific region,

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they picked 20 schools and did an assessment to see how teaching and learning takes place in the classrooms.

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And these results were presented at a regional meeting in Shanghai last year

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where it was found that for DPRK, there were two areas which were identified which required improvement.

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One was teacher training and the second was curriculum revision.

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And UNICEF is very much directly engaged with interventions in both these areas.

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The situation that exists in DPRK perhaps has a few parallels anywhere.

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And for me and the members of my team, I think the most satisfying part of being in DPRK

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is that we realize that UNICEF's presence really makes a difference for children.

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And everything that we do there has a direct impact on the well-being of children.

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And there is little that gives you greater satisfaction than doing a job which you think is worthwhile.