The Turning Point in International Development Cooperation of South Korea

Clarifying how South Korean aid had been changed during the procedures to join Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Development Assistance Committee (DAC), and the background why South Korea made a decision to become a DAC member are the main purposes of this study. Prior researches have identified a few reasons that clarifying emerging donor’s DAC entering mainly focused on external factors. This study describes South Korea’s decision to join DAC had been decided through domestic debates, unlike previous studies. The policy documents and qualitative interviews used to analyze the changes of aid and background in South Korea, especially during the 2000s. In 2005, the South Korean government announced a plan for aid policy reforms by 2010. The establishment of the Committee for International Development Cooperation for comprehensive aid policy‐making expansion of aid volume, and the increase in grant ratio were the major changes in this process. The members involved in Official Development Assistance policy reforms were not only officials but professionals who pursued a career in civil society as well. The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004 worked as one of the catastrophic events that pushed Korea to shift to real policy reform, but more than that, there was a social consensus on South Korea’s obligation to become an international donor. countries, expanding grant aid and untied aid, setting a law for aid, and joining the DAC.


Introduction
In 2010, Korea joined the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD DAC), which is a group of donor countries. The Korean government had decided to become a DAC member in the mid-2000s. The transition was a turning point for Korea in getting the identity of an aid-giver country. This paper examines the changes in the Korean aid policy in the 2000s. In addition, the factors that made Korea join the OECD's DAC will be discussed while focusing on the debates in Korea over the country's domestic policy.
to international development cooperation that need to be coordinated by the entire government.

Enactment of the Basic Law on International Development Cooperation: Framework Act on International Development Cooperation (2010)
As a result of the document Comprehensive Measures for Improving Foreign Aid, the Framework Act on International Development Cooperation (Framework Act) was enacted in 2010 and amended 2013. First, Article 1 of the Framework Act describes the purpose of the law as follows: "The purpose of this Act is to enhance the appropriateness of policies for international development cooperation and the effectiveness of implementation thereof, and effectively achieve the policy objectives of international development cooperation by providing for basic matters concerning international development cooperation, thus contributing to the co-prosperity of humanity and to world peace" (Framework Act on International Development Cooperation, 2013). 4 Specifically, the basic spirit and goals are set out in Article 3. Article 3 states, "The basic ideas of international development cooperation is to reduce poverty, improve the human rights of women, children, people with disabilities, and youth, achieve gender equality, realize sustainable development and humanitarianism in developing countries, promote economic cooperation relationship with partner countries and pursue peace and prosperity in the international community" (Framework Act on International Development Cooperation, 2013). 5 In fact, there has been some debate within the national assembly, regarding the purposes of aid, such as the phrase "promote economic cooperation relationship with partner countries," as a means of pursuing the interests of the Korean side (Proceedings of the 18th National Assembly, 2009). Nevertheless, it basically reflected the DAC's perception of aid in the Framework Act on International Development Cooperation. 6  In 2005 alone, the amount of aid increased exceptionally, but this was a sudden increase in support for reconstruction during the Iraq War. From the contents of Table 1, the ratio of ODA to GNI and total aid, on average, increased at a steady pace until 2010.

Elevating the quality of aid
There have been changes not only in the scale of the aid but also in the quality of the aid. The Comprehensive Measures for Improving Foreign Aid document states that South Korea needs to be aware of the tendencies in the international community to implement aid reform: focusing on poverty reduction, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Office for Government Policy Coordination, 2005a, p. 1). For this reason, although no concrete figures have been given in 2005, the government stated in the document that the proportion of grant aid will be expanded.
There was a year in which the amount of the grant exceeded that of loan aid, but from 2005 to 2010, the amount of grant aid has consistently exceeded the loan aid. This has been partly affected by the support to Iraq and Afghanistan because Korea is an ally of the United States. In particular, Korea's assistance to Iraq from 2003 to 2007 accounted for a large percentage of bilateral aid. Iraq was the biggest recipient country in 2005; ODA to Iraq accounted for 32.28% of total bilateral assistance. 7 Further, ODA to Afghanistan accounted for 10.4% in 2010. 8 This support was primarily provided through grants. In the result, as Table 2 indicates, the share of the grants greatly increased.  (OECD, 2008b, p. 184). South Korea increased its grant aid but did not reach the average level of the DAC, which was approximately more than 80%.

Changes in the evaluation system
KOICA established an evaluation office in 1998 and set the internal evaluation standards in 2006 (OECD, 2008a). The EDCF also has an evaluation system; however, there was no internal evaluation team, and this evaluation unit was temporarily set up for evaluation of each project (OECD, 2008a). In December 2009, the Korean government established an evaluation subcommittee as a subordinate body of the CIDC (OECD, 2012). This evaluation subcommittee's primary role is to review and approve the annual evaluation plan for each aid implementation (OECD, 2012). Though the evaluation system has been created, in 2009, there were some limitations such as the joint evaluation system cannot be considered fully functional, as it has not evaluated all projects (OECD, 2012

Public awareness of aid
Around the beginning of the 2000s, the public perception of aid began to change. The earthquake in Turkey, on August 17, 1999, attracted considerable public attention in Korea. Compared to the South Korean government's $ 70,000 donation to Turkey in response to the disaster, the donations from the general public amounted to approximately $ 1 million (Hong, 1999;Kwon, 1999). The newspapers and television in Korea raised the attention that Korea needed to give back, as Turkey was one of the countries that had participated in the Korean War as part of the UN force. The criticism of the government's response to such international disasters also began to be reported at this time (Kwon, 1999 (2005a) The government document Comprehensive Measures for Improving Foreign Aid had a major impact on Korean aid reforms in the late 2000s. This document included the majority of the challenges encountered by the government in 2010. Therefore, it is important why the Korean government decided to make such a change. The first debate within the government related to the need for Korea to have a better aid mechanism as a donor began in 2002 at the Korean Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development (PCSD). Especially, the development of the document Comprehensive Measures for Improving Foreign Aid in 2005 was very similar to the document "Proposal for Improvements of Official Development Assistance," which had been written by the PCSD at the end of 2004 (Compare the contents of the two documents in Table 3). The relationship between the two documents reveals how the debates processed within the government. 5.2.1 Opinion leaders' awareness of ODA: The Proposal for Improvements of Official Development Assistance by external experts of PCSD The Korean PCSD was not one of the ministries in the government. The PCSD was established in September 2000 as the Presidential Advisory Committee. Its establishment had been influenced by international society. After the Rio Declaration on environment and development in 1992, the United Nations recommended the member countries to set up a mechanism for implementation and evaluation of Agenda 21, based on an action plan. At the time of the Rio Declaration, South Korea's self-awareness was still of a developing country. Therefore, despite the UN recommendations, there was no immediate establishment of the recommended mechanism for implementation of Agenda 21 in South Korea.
In 1999, seven years after the Rio Declaration, various actors, including Korean civil society, the media, and academia urged the government to establish a state organization for sustainable development. President Kim Daejung agreed to establish the Presidential Advisory Committee on Sustainable Development, which was launched in September 2000. 10 The foundation of the PCSD was based on the Presidential Decree. The Roh Moo-hyun administration, which succeeded the Kim Dae-jung administration, had decided to continue with the PCSD activities. Irrespective of the change in the administration, the PCSD continued its activities as one of the National Agenda Committee for fulfilling the President's manifesto. As the Sustainable Commission was basically established as a mechanism for implementation and evaluation of sustainable development, the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, which was a Rio+10 meeting, in 2002, became an agenda to consider the future plan for Rio+10 goals. The Johannesburg Declaration stated, "We urge developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts toward the internationally agreed levels of Official Development Assistance" (United Nations, 2002). In response, the PCSD set up an ODA subcommittee to start discussions on aid. 11 The members of ODA subcommittee included government officials, but the majority comprised experts from various fields such as nongovernmental organizations and private sectors. These core members, who were not from the government, played a role in drafting aid reforms, coordinating various opinions, and finalizing the proposal for the President.
In order to reflect on the Johannesburg Declaration, it was necessary to understand the current state of Korean aid. The PCSD formulated approaches for effecting a change in ODA. In the Johannesburg Declaration, specific features of ODA were not mentioned, but a reference was made to "the internationally agreed levels of Official Development Assistance" (United Nations, 2002). The ODA subcommittee referred to MDGs and the DAC guidelines, which were considered to reflect on the "consensus of the world" required by the Johannesburg Declaration, and with that, the ODA subcommittee measured how Korean ODA was far away from the global consensus (Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development, 2004).
A more challenging task was the formation of loan-aid and grant-aid as an integrated policy. Until the early-2000s, ODA had been viewed as economic and diplomatic tools by the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) in Korea. 12 The ODA subcommittee discussed to set basic directions for ODA as a whole. Further, discussions were held with the officials of government organizations, such as the MOFE and the MOFAT, to come up with a comprehensive policy proposal, including loans and grants (Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development, 2004). The members of the ODA subcommittee referred to the DAC guidelines in making a draft for ODA reforms (Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development, 2004). The agreed perception among the members of the subcommittee was that the purpose of the aid should be the DAC's definition of ODA, which defines "the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective" (Interviews, 2015).
Despite the subcommittee's ideal perception of aid, it was not easy to coordinate the opinions of the ministries that actually had the ODA budget (Interviews, 2015). Though both the MOFE and the MOFAT agreed on the need to increase the budget as a donor country, deciding on the ratio of loan and grant was difficult as this was directly related to the issue of raise in the budgets of related ministries. Furthermore, it was related to the decision on which ministry could take the initiative regarding the complete aid policy.
The ODA subcommittee's report, which summarized the opinions of the actors in government ministries after discussions, was a proposal achieved through a realistic coordination. Nevertheless, the ODA subcommittee presented a proposal for aid reforms with a greater emphasis on global consensus: enlarging aid volume to the average level of the DAC countries, expanding grant aid and untied aid, setting a law for aid, and joining the DAC. The ODA subcommittee's report was the first turning point that the debates had started in converting South Korea's SSC to aid at the government level. 5.2.2 Government's policy process: Formulation of the ODA Improvement Task Force Team's Comprehensive Measures for Improving Foreign Aid The PCSD was one of the presidential advisory committees. From the nature of the government committee, even if the PCSD made an advisory proposal for the President, it was the government's decision, whether to reflect the result to the proposal. A proposal by the ODA subcommittee of the Sustainability Commission was in the same situation. As aid policy was not a major policy in Korea, the priority of the policy was low as well. There was a possibility that this proposal might not be taken up by the government. The ODA subcommittee submitted its final proposal titled the Proposal for Improvements of Official Development Assistance to the President on December 20, 2004.
Shortly after this proposal was submitted to the President, the Indian Ocean tsunami occurred on December 26, 2004. The disaster was so huge that it had a global impact, with more than 227,000 casualties (Telford et al., 2006, p. 16). The scale of the damage was huge, requiring a large amount of emergency assistance and restoration funds (Athukorala & Resosudarmo, 2005, p. 2). The donor countries started to support the damaged areas, even competing with each other in terms of the amount of aid. Each country aimed to show its presence in Asia along with humanitarian objectives (Zhang, 2006). The Korean government was not an exception. Initially, the amount of Korea's assistance was $ 5 million in December 2004, but it expanded to $ 50 million in January 2005 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005). This expansion was due to the decision by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan. Prime Minister Lee later said in an interview to a newspaper: "At that time, Japan and China brought a huge amount of $ 300 million-$ 500 million. I thought it was embarrassing as Korea at the initial amount" (Park et al., 2016). Subsequently, the South Korean government had taken proactive measures to support those affected in the Indian Ocean tsunami, emphasizing its obligations to the international community (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005).
With this regard, on April 30, 2005, the State Affairs Committee on Resource Allocation decided to expand the size of ODA to 0.1% of GNI by 2009 as a condition for improvement of aid efficiency. For this, a Task Force Team for Improvement of Official Development Assistance was set up in the Office for Government Policy Coordination under the Prime Minister (Office for Government Policy Coordination, 2005a). The Task Force Team for ODA of the Office for Government Policy Coordination comprised the government officials, the officials of aid agencies, and external experts. The team exchanged opinions with stakeholders and formed policy proposals, holding informal workshops with government officials, aid agencies, and civil society groups (Interview, 2016). In order to confirm public opinion, Office for Government Policy Coordination conducted a public opinion poll in August 2005 (Office for Government Policy Coordination, 2005b).
The contents included data on public awareness about aid, and whether Korea needs to provide aid to developing countries as a donor, and if so, for what reason. In the survey, 37.1% said they knew that South Korea provided aid as a donor, and 62.3% agreed that Korea should provide assistance to developing countries as a donor 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was one of the accidental occasions that led Korea to become a DAC donor country.
However, from a broader perspective, this implicated that the perceptions, regarding the undertaking of obligations required by the international community from a developed nation, existed in Korea. This awareness allowed the President and Prime Minister of Korea to accept the PCSD's proposal decision at the State Council to increase the aid volume as a condition to make aid policy reform. In the 2010s, as emerging donors emerged, the DAC's influence relatively had decreased than before, but for Korea, the DAC membership was still a symbol of being a developed country. This paper examines the changes and backgrounds in Korea's international development cooperation focused on the 2000s. The modalities of South Korea's aid have been shifted since then, affected by not only internal factors but external factors as well, as South Korea became one of the members of DAC. Further studies are needed on how internal and external factors worked in South Korea's development cooperation after DAC entering.