By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
A senior figure at Oxfam, one of the leading international development organizations, has called on Korean policymakers and aid activists to apply a bigger-picture approach when implementing development projects for poor countries.
Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International based in London, emphasized that a comprehensive aid approach, along with strong partnerships with recipient nations, are key to making aid programs effective.
``For example, if you build a school, where will the books come from? Can a teacher be found for that school? Who will pay the teacher?'' he said.
Founded in Britain in 1942, Oxfam is a global humanitarian relief organization working in more than 70 countries.
The global non-profit group provides immediate life-saving assistance to people affected by natural disasters or conflict and helps build their resilience to future disasters.
In an email interview with The Korea Times, Hobbs gave several tips that Korean relief activists need to keep in mind when implementing aid programs in the less developed world.
Oxfam believes that the best people to help poor communities are community members themselves as no-one understands their problems better than they do.
This view highlights a key principle for aid workers or policymakers from the developed world to keep in mind: Do not try to lecture recipient nations.
``Listening is absolutely vital to finding lasting solutions, and making a project successful,'' Hobbs said.
Hobbs said that recipient countries have all the answers to those questions, stressing the importance of working closely with local communities.
``It is crucial to consult with local communities, civil organizations and government officials to understand their needs and plans and to negotiate a way to best strengthen those plans,'' Hobbs said.
He continued, ``If development organizations link up with local networks and organizations and get real dialogues going, their projects will be successful on a long-term basis under real partnerships.''
World Vision Korea, a Christian humanitarian charity organization dedicated to working with children, adopted a similar policy in working on relief programs.
``We have overseas liaison offices and they are primarily responsible for devising and working on community projects. Our staff works closely with local communities for planning and implementing aid projects,'' said Kim Eun-ha, its spokeswoman.
Oxfam found that in 2006, Cambodia had 16 donors implementing 57 education projects, showing the problem of uncoordinated development assistance.
``Unfortunately, a lot of development aid is given in isolation from development strategies that poor countries have worked out themselves and using short-term trajectories.
``Uncoordinated and fragmented development assistance puts a very heavy administrative burden on recipient countries,'' Hobbs said.
To make aid effective, the Oxfam leader recommended aid workers try not to just fix the symptoms of a problem but to link with others to try to address the causes.
``For example, if working in a country with high maternal mortality rates, the solution is not going to be to build a series of clinics,'' he said.
He called on activists and relief group leaders to think hard about the reasons behind the problem.
``Is it that there are not enough nurses and doctors? Or is it that they can't get transport to clinics? Or that they can't afford to pay for healthcare?''
Hobbs said one valuable contribution could be to join the global campaign to push for development assistance that will allow poor countries to provide free healthcare.
His words of advice came weeks after the government joined the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), a club of donors.
With its membership, Korea, the first recipient-turned-donor, vowed to increase official development assistance, along with dispatching more aid workers and providing technical assistance programs to the Third World.
Civic group activists have high expectations, with the hope that an increase in budget for the purpose of ending poverty in poor nations will result in more overseas aid programs.
Currently, Korean activists from 31 national and international relief and humanitarian organizations are working with local civic groups and residents in 58 less developed nations.
Lee Kyung-shim, a senior activist working with Korea NGO Council for Overseas Cooperation, told The Korea Times that local non-profit groups began taking interest in relief and humanitarian projects around a decade ago.
``We are faced with a reality where non-profit groups have little expertise in the international development field,'' she said.
``Compared with other leading non-profits such as Oxfam, we have fewer experts and volunteers who really know about the unique circumstances facing recipient countries.''
Activists agreed that more Koreans donate cash than before to help people living in less developed countries as the number of relief groups has increased.
Lee said there was a discrepancy, though, in fundraising performances between non-profit groups that are relatively established and start-ups having relatively fewer members.
``A large portion of individual donations still goes to established ones,'' she said.
To help those local relief organizations struggling with financial constraints and poor expertise, Lee called for more state subsidies for development organizations.
State subsidies account for approximately 29 percent of the annual budget of Good Neighbors, one of the largest home-grown relief organizations.
The non-profit group, which has run domestic and overseas programs and programs for North Koreans, gets funds from the Korea International Cooperation Agency, the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.
World Vision is less dependent on state-funding.
Kim of the Christian relief organization said that the relief organization runs on donations from its 350,000 members.
After the government announced its plan to increase overseas development assistance, policymakers and activists are faced with challenging tasks.
They must now come up with a strategy to address the concerns below.
Can starting overseas relief and humanitarian projects be linked to the improvement in the standards of living for people in the less developed world?
How can non-profit groups make sure that an increase of relief programs helps reduce poverty?
These questions need thoughtful answers, because otherwise the budget increase could end up with Korea only financing one-off programs that are not linked to sustainable growth in the recipient nations.
The vast majority of Korean relief organizations have worked on overseas development projects for a decade or less.
The short history indicates that Korean non-profits are exposed to limitations in the areas of financial resources, expertise and man power.
In a report, the Korea NGO Council for Overseas Cooperation pointed out home-grown humanitarian organizations' relatively poor networking with established international relief groups and local groups as one of the factors limiting their activities.
Oxfam International attributed a crucial part of its success to the fact that it works in partnerships with more than 3,000 local organizations in poor countries.