By Kang Hyun-kyung, Ryu Chang-gi
Aid workers and experts are expressing concern over election politics as major presidential candidates are staying mum on development assistance.
They are worried that presidential hopefuls’ putting too much emphasis on domestic audience could steal attention from people living below the poverty line overseas, and as a result the aid budget will shrink under the next government.
Kim Eun-mee, dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, called on presidential candidates to unveil their plans for development assistance.
“International aid groups and workers have watched closely the government’s aid plan after Korea became the first recipient-turned-donor country in 2009,” Kim said.
“At present, domestic issues are dominating the presidential campaign. I believe presidential candidates need to look beyond the domestic audience and address how they are going to respond to the call to fight global poverty.”
The reaction came as three major presidential candidates have vowed to increase the social safety net and welfare spending, if elected, as social polarization between the haves and have-nots has emerged as a major campaign issue.
But none of them have properly addressed the role of Korea in fighting global poverty, leaving aid workers worried over the consequences of the presidential election.
Professor Kim said experience in Western countries showed that in general liberal governments were in favor of development assistance.
“When we look at the history of Northern Europe or Canada, the aid budget increased when liberal governments took power whereas a pro-market regime tends to cut budgets for social policies and development assistance,” she said.
Since joining the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2009, the government pledged to play an active role to fight global concerns.
The nation’s aid agency strove to improve aid effectiveness to help poor nations cut the vicious circle of poverty and the aid-reliance economy.
One of the strategies it adopted to achieve this was teaming up with experienced donors as they have expertise and knowhow on development assistance.
Recently, the Korea International Aid Agency (KOICA) stepped up efforts to sign aid partnerships with donor countries having a relatively long history of development assistance.
Last week, it signed a partnership agreement with Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on the sidelines of foreign ministers’ talks. The KOICA-CIDA agreement followed the aid agency’s signing a development assistance partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2010, and the aid agencies of Brazil and Germany last year.
The aid agency said the partnership with advanced donors will help better fight child mortality and maternal health in Africa.
Jang Woo-hwan, a professor of Department of Agricultural Economics at Kyungpook National University, said the aid partnerships will help the international community reduce overlapping programs.