Former KOICA official's love for the world

Song In-yeop

By Jung Min-ho

When Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani called Song In-yeop “Santa Claus” during his visit to Korea in 2006, pointing to the former relief work’s long white beard, Song said “Please don’t call me Santa because he only comes once a year just for children.”

Song, in contrast, has for the past 22 years been devoted to working for the poor around the globe almost every day until he retired from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) recently.

“It was such a great opportunity for me to serve people in need on behalf of my country,” the 58-year-old said in an interview with The Korea Times. “We have planted hopes and confidence in developing countries by telling them how Korea made a miracle from being the world’s poorest country to one of the richest now.”

Founded as a government agency on April 1, 1991, KOCIA’s goals are to alleviate poverty and to promote humanitarian assistance as well as their security. Despite great contributions KOICA has made for the world community, Song knows there is heavy lifting still to be done to eradicate such problems.

“The saddest part of starvation is that the symptom is often chronic; therefore, giving them vision to stand up their own feet is as important as feeding them,” Song said. “There definitely is an area that those countries can learn from Korea’s can-do spirit.”

Song said teaching about Korea’s Saemaeul Movement and the spirit of “diligence, self-reliance and cooperation” was his most rewarding and proud experience.

“Korea’s aid budget, however, is only 0.13 percent of GDP. The number is far less than the OECD average of 0.35, let alone the UN’s recommendation of 0.7. As promised, the government has to raise it to at least 0.25 by 2015,” he said.

Song said it is not just recipients who benefit from aid but also donors.

“Such activities will improve our national prestige as well as relationships with the countries we help. In the end, it will positively affect our exports to them and we can cultivate much global talent in the process,” he said. “More importantly, it is our responsibility as a citizen of the world.”

Song recently published the book, “World Travel Singing in Poems,” a collection of poems about every country he has visited.

Song said he wanted to “let people know the world is still beautiful and there are lots of things to be done” through the book. The poems are written both in English and Korean and will soon also be published in the United States.