The Republic of Korea has shown impressive economic progress over the last 50 years with gross national income (GNI) rising from US$2.98 billion in 1962 to US$966.6 billion in 2009, ranking it the 13^th largest economy in the world (World Development Indicators). In November 2009 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oh Joon said, “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” (OECD DAC).  Korea’s development and transition from aid recipient to aid donor has taken place in a relatively short period of time, and its economic growth has enabled its aid budget to increase from US$100.3 million in 1995 to US$816 million in 2009.

Source: Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/nov/02/g20-summit-cannes-interactive

On 1 January 2010, Korea became the 24th member of the Organisaton for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Development Assistant Committee (DAC).  During a special session in November 2009 the OECD DAC unanimously appointed Korea as a member on the grounds that it has successfully transformed from “an emerging donor to an advanced donor”, with increased official development assistance (ODA) volumes, coherent aid strategies, and an aid system developed in line with OECD DAC principles. In 2008 the OECD DAC conducted a Special Review of the Republic of Korea’s Development Cooperation citing recommendations for future aid policy, systems and coordination.

History of assistance

In the aftermath of the 1950 Korean War three quarters of Korea’s imports were financed by foreign aid and by 1962 the first Five-Year Economic Development Plan was implemented with foreign aid playing a key role in Korea’s social and economic development. From 1945 to the 1990s Korea received a total of just under US$13 billion in overseas assistance. However, Korea has regarded itself as a donor since the 1960s, when it provided training to technical staff from developing countries with the support of USAID. Independent assistance from Korea began in the 1980s, when it designed a development programme in support of South-South cooperation (Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)). By 1995 Korea was no longer on the World Bank’s list of recipient lending.

Aid architecture

Four key actors are responsible for Korea’s development assistance. Korea’s concessional loan policy is implemented by the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), under the supervision of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF), and its bilateral grant aid policy is implemented by the KOICA, under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT).

EDCF promotes economic cooperation through concessional loans for development projects to developing country governments. KOICA is a key driver in the implementation of Korea’s ODA and is responsible for grant aid and technical cooperation programmes – promoting sustainable development, strengthening partnerships with developing partners and enhancing the local ownership of beneficiaries.

Official development assistance (ODA)

Korea’s ODA contributions have grown from US$100.3 million in 1995 to US$816 million in 2009, and preliminary figures estimate that its aid could reach over US$1 billion in 2010. However, even with this potential growth in aid in 2010 it would still only rank Korea 18^th compared to other OECD DAC donors’ aid volumes.

Humanitarian contributions between 1995 and 2009 totalled US$156.9 million and unsurprisingly Korea’s humanitarian aid as a proportion of ODA since 1995 averaged at only 2.7%.  In 2009 Korea gave US$19.4 million in humanitarian aid ranking it fairly low (28^th) compared to other government donors such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 12^th, Saudi Arabia, 20^th and Greece, 23^rd.

ODA and humanitarian aid from Korea, 1995 – 2010. Data for 2010 is prelimanry and ODA is inclusive of debt relief, 1995-2009 ODA excludes debt relief.

ODA and HA 1995-2010″ src=”http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ODA-and-HA-1995-2010.png” alt=”" width=”600″ height=”371″ />

Source: Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

Key committments

• Korea has committed to 0.15% ODA/gross national income (GNI) by 2012 and 0.15% by 2015.
• It has also committed to untie 75% of ODA by 2015.
• Korea aims to double ODA to Africa to US$214 million by 2012.
• Within the health sector it has pledged US$6 million to The Global Fund 2011-2013 and US$1 million to GAVI.

Source: ONE, Data Report 2011

Humanitarian aid engagement

Korea does not currently have a specific humanitarian policy, but disaster relief and reconstruction is one of KOICA’s aid themes and emergency relief and reconstruction has become a core programme. In October 2006 it joined the United Nations’ (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Donors Support Group (ODSG) and co-convened the ODSG Partnership Meeting in June 2007, in Seoul. Korea also joined the Humanitarian Liaison Working Group (HLWG) in July 2007 (which focused on assistance to specific crises and countries), the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) teams since 2003 and the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) since 1999 (chairing it in 2000). Since Korea specialises in search and rescue efforts, it has also participated in the OCHA-administered Asia-Pacific Humanitarian Partnership (APHP) since its establishment in 2004. In July 2009 Korea signed up to the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD)initiative, becoming the 36^th member.

Recipient allocation

Korea’s aid shows allocation based on regional proximity. Between 2000 and 2009 a significant proportion of Korea’s aid, over half (US$2.3 billion), was concentrated in Asia, with 30% of total contributions going to the Far East (US$1.3 billion).  Sub-Saharan Africa has received just under 18% (US$756 million) in this period.

Korea’s regional allocation of aid, 2000-2009

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

Korea’s top recipients are similar year on year with Viet Nam and Iraq featuring regularly – six and five times respectively. The other recipients that featured in Korea’s top ten in 2009 included Angola (US$28.7 million), Afghanistan (US$27.9 million), Laos (US$26.3 million), Turkey (US$25.1 million), Philippines (US$22.3 million), Nepal (US$21.5 million) and Bangladesh (US$19.9 million).

Korea’s top three aid recipients (US$m), 2000-2009

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
1	Viet Nam	Viet Nam	China	Iraq	Iraq	Iraq	Iraq	Iraq	Viet Nam	Viet Nam
	21.8	53.8	31.8	42.7	70.8	130.4	46.4	41.7	56.5	71.4
2	Uzbekistan	Indonesia	Viet Nam	Indonesia	Viet Nam	Bangladesh	Bangladesh	Sri Lanka	Cambodia	Mongolia
	20.6	29.2	31.3	33.7	36.5	39.5	25.7	29.6	33.7	33.7
3	China	China	Cambodia	Afghanistan	Bangladesh	Sri Lanka	Sri Lanka	Cambodia	Angola	Indonesia
	19.4	23.0	27.8	24.2	28.6	32.4	29.6	28.9	23.8	31.7

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

Recipients of Korea’s humanitarian aid are concentrated in Asia and the Middle East.  However, recipient allocation is less concentrated than that for ODA – Iraq and Indonesia appear in the top three only three times each.

Korea’s top three humanitarian aid recipients (US$m), 2000-2009

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
1	Serbia	Serbia	Afghanistan	China	Afghanistan	Sri Lanka	Indonesia	Iraq	China	Palestine/OPT
	0.2	0.3	2.3	0.3	11.8	7.2	9.8	5.4	5.9	3.1
2	Pakistan	Guinea	Timor-Leste	Iran	Thailand	Iraq	Iraq	Lebanon	Iraq	Sri Lanka
	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.2	0.2	5.7	7.0	1.7	3.0	2.1
3	Ethiopia	Tanzania	Ethiopia	Algeria	Indonesia	Indonesia	Philippines	Bangladesh	Myanmar	Indonesia
	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.2	4.0	1.0	1.1	2.6	1.6

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is absent from Korea’s list of aid recipients as these flows are not formally reported to the OECD DAC and cannot officially be classed as ODA. For Korea, the DPRK is not classified as a separate country but is regarded as the northern part of the peninsula – “politically, both North and South claim sovereignty over each other’s territory. Article 3 of the South’s constitution specifies the Korean peninsula and its adjacent islands as its territory. Therefore, such flow (aid, trade) between the two is considered as a domestic one” (Soyeun Kim, 2011). In 2007 it was estimated that that around US$558 million could be classed as ODA from the South to the North (OECD DAC).

 Types of aid

Between 2006 and 2009 95% of Korea’s aid was sector allocable. Humanitarian aid only made up 4% in this period of which reconstruction and relief was the largest sub-sector (US$30.4 million) followed by emergency relief (US$19 million).

Korea’s types of aid, 2006-2009

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

Of Korea’s sector allocable aid the majority (53%) is spent on social infrastructure and services.

Breakdown of Korea’s sector allocable aid, 2006-2009

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

A breakdown of social infrastructure and services shows that education receives the largest proportion, US$266.3 million (30%), followed by government and civil society, US$231.1 million (26%) and health, US$217.6 million (25%).

Breakdown of Korea’s social infrastructure and services aid, 2006-2009

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

Channels of delivery and financing mechanisms

Korea channels the majority of its aid through the public sector, however a higher proportion of aid was channelled through multilateral organisations in 2008 and 2009.

Korea’s aid, channels of delivery (US$m), 2006-2009

	2006	2007	2008	2009
Public sector	97%	95%	89%	89%
NGOs and CSOs	1%	1%	2%	2%
Public-Private Partnerships	0%	0%	1%	1%
Multilateral organisations	1%	3%	8%	8%

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

Multilateral funding

Korea financially supports a wide range of multilateral institutions. Since 2007 it has channelled a large amount of aid, US$194.6 million through the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank. It has also maintained annual contributions of approximately US$27 million to the Asian Development Fund since 2006.

Korea’s multilateral funding, (US$m), 2006-2009

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

An increasing proportion of Korea’s humanitarian aid is being channelled through multilateral organisations as opposed to the public sector. A recommendation from the OECD DAC’s Special Review of Korea’s Development Co-operation was that more of Korea’s humanitarian aid be channelled through multilateral and pooled funding mechanisms rather than bilateral systems.

Korea’s humanitarian aid, channels of delivery (US$m), 2005-2009

	2006	2007	2008	2009
Public sector	93%	75%	75%	33%
NGOs and CSOs	0%	0%	0%	0%
Red Cross Movement	0%	1%	1%	4%
Multilateral organisations	7%	24%	24%	63%

Source:Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC data, constant 2009 prices.

To download this article as a pdf please click here

The report is available here.

The report can be found here and the accompanying data is available in excel here.

The study was carried out in February 2011 and set out to map the sources and volumes of funding as well as the scope of the various resource flows.  In addition to this, the wider contribution of the KRCS to the country’s overall humanitarian response was explored, which included consideration of the Society’s auxiliary role to the Government, the extent of its autonomy, its role within the humanitarian system and its relationship with key stakeholders.

The report can be found here.

In this profile we analyse Japan’s humanitarian aid – who are the largest recipients, what sectors receive the most funding, does Japan channel aid through pooled funding mechanisms and support the UN CAP appeals?

A breakdown of the data is available in excel here.

Non-DAC donors, a group of donors that sits outside the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member group, are often considered to provide limited aid information which is difficult to access; they are not subject to the same reporting obligations as the OECD DAC donors. However, a number of non-DAC donors do report to the OECD DAC and have done so for a number of years (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Non DAC donors reporting to the OECD DAC. [Source: OECD DAC]

In recent years the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken significant steps to make its aid more visible. In 2008 it established the Office for the Coordination of Foreign Aid (OCFA), an independent body whose role is to support the delivery and implementation of UAE’s development and humanitarian aid. OFCA’s primary task is to collect, analyse and report all aid flows from the UAE since 1971. In 2010 it reported its 2009 aid information to the OECD DAC  separately from the ‘Arab countries’ grouping and is the first non-DAC donor to report disaggregated data to the OECD DAC Creditor Reporting System (CRS). This means that a detailed breakdown of the UAE’s aid can now be analysed. For more details on the UAE’s aid flows see a recent dac-one-step-closer-to-better-aid-information-2117.html”>blog, ‘The United Arab Emirates reports to the DAC: one step closer to aid information?’

Despite this, we do not have an accurate figure for the aid expenditure of many non-DAC donors, let alone detailed data on their humanitarian aid contributions.  To fill the gaps we currently rely on the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service (FTS), a real-time database containing humanitarian aid data from a number of donors, including non-DACs. In 2009, 90 non-DAC donors reported their humanitarian aid information to this database.

However, the FTS is not without limitations as it relies on donors voluntarily reporting their information. As a result, not all flows are captured. We expect that the aid contributions of some non-DAC donors are in fact far higher than the levels reported. A look at Turkey’s humanitarian aid proves this point. In 2005 alone Turkey reported aid contributions of US$78.7 million through the FTS compared to the substantially higher US$237.7 million through the OECD DAC. Figure 2 shows some of the key non-DAC donors’ humanitarian aid volumes alongside the degree to which they report their humanitarian aid information.  For example, the UAE reports to multiple databases such as the FTS, OCFA, the DAC and the CRS and was also the largest non-DAC donor of humanitarian aid in 2009.

Figure 2: Non-DAC donors’ humanitarian aid volumes compared to reporting of humanitarian aid. [Source: Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC and FTS data, 2009]

We believe that some non-DAC donors are making considerable progress in increasing the availability of their aid information but some still have a long way to go. The GHA programme identifies three levels of reporting as outlined in the figure 3. There are many stages to publishing information and at a minimum we would encourage donors to report their data, in any format.

Figure 3: Levels of reporting aid information as advocated by GHA.

The situation in Yemen is complex due to a multiplicity of issues such as internal protracted conflict, al-Qaeda activity, risks of vulnerabilities to natural disasters, water shortages and refugee displacement. Yemen ranks low on the Human Development Index, 133 out of 169 countries, due to low adult literacy and high under five mortality rates. The number of refugees residing in the country has risen from 53,453 in 1995 to 170,854 in 2009 (UNHCR) and the number of internally displaced people stands at 342,000 (UNOCHA, 2010).  In recent weeks, in response to regional political movements across North Africa, there have been pro democracy demonstrations in Yemen in which thousands of protesters have called for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32 year rule.

However historically, even with its fragile humanitarian situation, Yemen has not been a major recipient of aid. In our latest factsheet we analyse in more detail aid contributions to Yemen. The excel sheet containing the data can be accessed here.

The UAE’s reporting to the OECD DAC includes official development assistance (ODA) flows as far back as 1970 and bilateral humanitarian aid for 2009. In addition the UAE will be the first non-DAC donor to report to the DAC Creditor Reporting System (CRS) which will enable users to disaggregate the data by channel of delivery showing which agencies received its aid e.g. public sector, multilaterals, NGOs and civil society.

Trends in UAE’s ODA show peaks in 2007 and 2009, US$452 million and US$859 million respectively. Interestingly, aid significantly dropped in 2008 (US$88 million) which could be correlated to the global economic crisis and the plummeting of oil prices.

Figure 1: The United Arab Emirates’ official development assistance (ODA), excluding debt relief, 1995-2009, constant 2008 prices. OECD DAC data

The recipient allocation of UAE’s ODA shows regional priorities with the highest concentration of aid, 25% (US$226.6 million) going to Palestine/OPT, then Pakistan 18% (US$163.5 million), Oman 15% (US$136.1 million) and Yemen 15% (US$134.0 million).  Seven of the top ten recipients are Arab states (excluding Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan), which received 75% of the top ten recipient contributions, US$686.9 million.

Figure 2: Top ten recipients of the United Arab Emirates’ official development assistance (ODA), excluding debt relief 2009, constant 2008 prices. OECD DAC data

In 2009 the UAE reported US$138.9 million in bilateral humanitarian aid, ranking it the 15^th largest government donor reporting to the DAC that year. The top five recipients of the UAE’s humanitarian aid in 2009 also appeared amongst the top ten recipients for ODA. In 2009 Pakistan received the highest proportion, 67% (US$89.5 million), followed by Palestine/OPT, 20% (US$27.2 million) and Yemen, 4% (US$5.2 million). The UAE’s humanitarian aid allocation again shows support to Arab states – six of the top ten recipients.

Figure 3: Top ten recipients of the United Arab Emirates’ humanitarian aid 2009, constant 2008 prices. OECD DAC data

The UAE has made significant efforts to make its aid more visible. In 2008 it established the Office for the Coordination of Foreign Aid (OCFA), an independent body to support the delivery and implementation of UAE’s development and humanitarian aid as well as retrospectively collect, analyse and report all aid flows from the UAE since 1971.

We welcome the UAE’s increased reporting of its aid information and hope in the future it will take further steps to make its aid data more transparent, timely and detailed.

To access the excel document click ODA-16-Dec4.xls”>here