South Korea’s Transition from Recipient to DAC Donor: Assessing Korea’s Development Cooperation Policy

Abstract

Since the 1960s, South Korea has transformed from a recipient country of official development assistance to a significant donor. In 2010, South Korea became a Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member. This paper aims to analyse Korean development cooperation policies and place them in comparison with other donors. The analysis begins with an examination of the wider context of evolving development cooperation that frames the Korean policies. In the second section, the paper analyses Korean development cooperation and its primary objectives. This is followed by a discussion of various different approaches toward development cooperation, specifically focussing on aid conditionality (or lack thereof), the use of grants versus loans and the use of multilateral channels in comparison with bilateral channels. The paper goes on to highlight the destinations of Korean aid in terms of both geography and economic sectors. The last section reflects on the paper’s overall findings, with specific reference to the place of Korea in the wider donor landscape, arguing that Korea constitutes a traditional DAC donor.

Keywords

• official development assistance (ODA)
• emerging economies
• United Nations (UN)
• South-South cooperation
• European Commission