The Republic of Korea has just become the 24th member of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In a meeting that took place last Wednesday, 25 November, Korean Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oh Joon, commented: “Half a century ago, Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world, endeavouring to emerge from the ashes of the Korean War to rebuild itself”.
Now the world’s 13th largest economy, Korea was heavily reliant on foreign assistance right up until the late 1990s. It joined the OECD in 1996. Next year, it will chair the G20 – and in 2011, will host the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, where progress on global efforts to make aid more effective in reducing poverty and promoting economic growth will be assessed. The existence of appropriate institutions and policies to manage aid, the quality of a country’s statistical reporting on ODA efforts, and the country’s ability and willingness to implement important DAC recommendations are all prerequisites for DAC membership. Korea’s compliance was confirmed by a team of experts from the DAC Secretariat back in June.
Another condition of DAC membership is the size of a country’s aid programme. Korea’s aid expanded from US$696 million in 2007 to US$803 million in 2008. Further, it has pledged to increase its aid from the present 0.09%of GDP to 0.25% by 2015.
Korea reported almost US$17 million in humanitarian aid through the DAC in 2007. Preliminary figures, due to be confirmed by the DAC later this week, suggest that this rose to US$23.7 million in 2008.
Korea has undertaken a number of reforms to improve its humanitarian system in the last few years, including the introduction of an Overseas Emergency Relief Act, the creation of a Humanitarian Aid Division within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFAT) and the development of an emergency relief operational manual. Korea signed up to the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) principles earlier this year.
You can read more about government contributions to humanitarian aid by visiting the government section of the help desk area on our site.
For further info, see:
http://www.oecd.org/document/50/0,3343,en_2649_33721_44141618_1_1_1_1,00...
http://www.odakorea.go.kr/eng/introduction/message.php
