Over the past years, Korea has been pushing to expand its global role as a middle power. It is natural and desirable for the country to seek to make contributions to the international community commensurate with its status as the world’s 13th-largest economy.
This effort will hopefully increase Korea’s influence and leadership in addressing a range of global issues.
Traditionally, Scandinavian nations have been key players in middle-power diplomacy, but their activities have been on the wane with the deepening of European integration. This has created an opportunity for Korea to seek greater roles in the field.
In 2013, Korea formed a cross-regional group with Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and Australia, which was dubbed MIKTA after their initials. Seoul plans to host the fifth meeting of foreign ministers from the five countries next week. They will likely discuss the North Korean nuclear issue and such global issues as cybersecurity and climate change.
Many agree that the best role for Korea as a middle power can be found in the area of development cooperation with less developed states. Based on its transformation from an aid recipient to a donor in the post-World War II era, Korea is well positioned to play a bridging role between developing and developed countries. It also has the potential to act as a trustworthy intermediary between traditional and emerging donor countries.
Korea set aside $1.85 billion in official development assistance last year. Its ratio of ODA to gross national income remains lower than the figures for most members of the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But its overseas development aid spending has increased at the fastest pace in the OECD over the past five years.
But there is much to be done to ensure Korea’s ODA programs will be implemented in a more efficient and effective manner to help beneficiaries as much as possible.
The Foreign Ministry, which is in charge of the country’s overseas development aid, was chided by the state auditor last week for lacking proper strategies and guidelines on how to spend the funds.
The Board of Audit and Inspection indicated the ODA fund had been distributed to many international organizations and projects in small sums without bringing persistent and substantial results. The ministry was asked by the BAI to set up a planning and management system to enable Korea to make more strategic and efficient contributions to less developed parts of the world.
As the state auditor noted, the ministry should establish concrete goals, principles of action and standards of assessment for ODA implementation.
True, Korea can provide developing countries with programs tailored to meet their specific needs, based on its own experience of ascending from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War to become a major economic powerhouse. At the same time, however, the country needs to carefully learn from the knowledge accumulated over decades of global development governance and keep up with the work to reform it.
In this regard, Korea should pay attention to the agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals that have been pursued by the U.N. over the past 15 years. The post-2015 development cooperation, the framework of which is to be formed at a U.N. meeting in September, is seen to cover more diverse fields, broadening the options for Korea’s contributions.
