In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

It is entirely appropriate that the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness is being held in the city of Busan, South Korea. In many ways, Busan symbolizes the story of Korea’s transition from poverty and aid dependence to aid donor and host of the most important global meeting on development cooperation.

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On October 13, President Obama will host President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea for a state visit in Washington. President Lee will also address a joint session of the United States Congress. As only the 5th head of state to be given such full honors by President Obama, one would think that Koreans would follow this summit meeting with their closest ally with great interest. So far, however, it seems that the Korean media and the general public are not paying much attention.

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The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4) at the end of November in Busan, Korea, will be the most inclusive global consultation on development cooperation ever held. As national host of the forum, the Korean government has created a unique opportunity for all major aid players to come together by throwing open the doors to representatives of non-governmental organizations and the private sector. At a conference last week in Seoul, the Seoul Civil Society Forum on Aid and Development Effectiveness…

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While most of the news from Korea focuses on the division between South and North, there has always been another sharp division – that between the political right and left in the South. So deep has been the distrust between the two camps that polls showed that some one-third of the South Korean public did [...]

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In spite of their appropriately firm responses to North Korea over the sinking of the South’s naval vessel in March that left 46 dead, both the United States and South Korea have left open the door for humanitarian assistance to the North, especially aid to vulnerable populations. This is a positive signal in the midst [...]

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Korea’s immediate commitment of $10 million in assistance to Haiti and the response by corporations and the Korean public is impressive. Clearly Koreans want to help, but how can they be sure that their aid will be most effective? In an emergency of this scale and complexity, and in a relatively limited area, the most [...]

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At a time when the Korean government is discussing plans to deploy more civilian aid workers and security troops to Afghanistan early next year, development progress in the entire South Asia region is high on the minds of Korean policymakers and aid organizations. On November 25, South Korea further solidified its commitment to international development [...]

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While delivering needed assistance to people in the North is the first-order objective of South Korean NGOs, closely related is the objective of contributing to reconciliation between South and North. NGOs could contribute to reconciliation by reducing misunderstanding, deepening trust, and providing alternative channels for communication that can operate when governmental channels are constrained. Civil [...]

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It seems to me that there are two names that have indelibly influenced modern Korean history and the amazing accomplishments that the Korean people have achieved. One is Park Chung-hee, who force-marched Koreans down the road of economic growth, laying the foundations for the prosperity that we see today. The other is Kim Dae-jung, who [...]

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Korea is well known for the massive and frequent street demonstrations organized by various civil society groups to bring pressure on the government over issues of the day. Last spring, we witnessed the sight of hundreds of thousands of Koreans marching with candles almost every night for two months to protest against importing beef from [...]

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