Search

The landscape of global foreign aid is changing with the growing number of new donors, especially in Asia. While Japan is no longer overwhelmingly dominant, complexity grows as China is becoming increasingly influential as an emerging donor, and Korea is rising to be a considerable donor by joining the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee. In this context, there have been numerous controversies concerning East Asian donors, and even debates about the East Asian model of aid apart from the more traditional Western models. However, only a handful of studies have examined donor behavior empirically. This study aims to assess the motives in the foreign aid allocations of China, Japan, and Korea as a group and as individual donors by methodically and empirically examining aid patterns and the East Asian model of aid. This research shows that the most important drivers of aid allocations of East Asian donor are economic, as opposed to political-strategic or humanitarian, which is viewed as typical for China, Japan, and Korea. Furthermore, this characteristic of valuing economic factors can be seen more clearly in Asia and other regions compared to in Africa. However, on an individual country level, economic motives are the primary determinants of aid allocations only for China. Japan prioritizes humanitarian factors over economic ones, and Korea does not reveal a clear pattern either way.

최근 미국 트럼프행정부의 일방주의로의 회귀 등과 같이 다자주의의 위기로 해석될 수 있는 일련의 국제적 동향들이 늘어나고 있다. 국제개발협력에서도 다자성양자 원조(multi-bi aid) 등이 증가하면서 다자주의의 위기가 제기되고 있다. 과연 국제개발협력의 다자주의는 위기를 맞고 있는 것일까? 본 연구는 국제개발협력에서 다자주의 위기의 실체에 접근하기 위해, 다자주의 발생 배경과 경로, 그리고 행위자가 유사한 인권, 환경 분야와의 질적 비교분석을 시도하였다. 비교분석을 통해, 본 연구는 국제개발협력에서의 다자주의 위기는 근거가 미약함을 확인하였다. 국제개발협력에서 다자주의는 MDGs로부터 SDGs로의 변화를 거치며 보다 많은 행위자를 포괄하고, 다자기구의 수를 늘리고 그 역할을 강화하였다. 그 결과 개발 분야에서 다자주의 행위자는 공여국, 개발도상국, 국제기구, NGO, 기업 등으로 그 다양성이 증가했다. 또한 의제(agenda) 형성과 구속력 논의 및 실질 이행(implementation)에 있어서 다양한 참여자들에게 권한과 의무를 부여했다. 물론, 기존까지의 국제개발협력 다자 규범들이 법적 구속력이 미비하다는 점에서 제도화 차원에서의 한계를 보이기도 한다. 이 같은 상황에서도 개발 분야 다자 규범들은 도덕적, 정치적 의무를 점차 강화해나가고 있다는 점에서 다자 규범의 제도화는 점진적으로 진행되고 있다고 볼 수 있다.

BACKGROUND In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), policymakers and practitioners are increasingly focusing on the effectiveness of digital devices for medical and education services in children. However, several critical questions regarding the effectiveness of digital devices for preschool-aged children in LMICs remain unanswered due to a lack of evidence. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the relationship between familiarity with digital devices, social-economic status, and the cognitive functions of preschool-aged children in Cambodia. METHODS Based on a survey on three- to nine-year-old children’s familiarity with digital devices and the results of an impact test regarding the application of cognitive development, we examined the influence of the application on cognitive development of children in two Cambodian schools from 22 April to 4 May 2019. For analysis, the children were split into two groups: Group (A) children with pre-test digital device experience, and Group (B) children without pre-test digital device experience. RESULTS The results of CANTAB tests, except for one related to executive function area, did not indicate significant differences (p>0⸱05) among Group (A), Group (B), and the four sub-groups. Pre-test digital device experience and the amount of time using digital devices during the test did not have significantly different impacts on the cognitive development of children. Conversely, the education expenditure levels caused significant differences in the attention and executive function areas. CONCLUSIONS These results provide evidence for the importance of improving socio-economic conditions leading to investment in education when policymakers and practitioners are looking to implement programs for children’s cognitive development through digital devices in LMICs.

Using the analytical framework based on the constructivist approach, this paper focuses on norm grafting by the NGOs: especially the agenda framing which are exploited by NGOs to maximize norm grafting and the process of internalizing norms in the differing stages of state policy making as a final process of norm grafting. For a case study, this paper examines how South Korean NGOs framed the issue of humanitarian assistance to North Korea throughout the three administrations of Kim Young-Sam (1995-1997), Kim Dae-Jung (1998-2002) and Roh Moo-Hyun (2003-2007) and to what extent it affected changes in aid polity towards North Korea. The paper argues that two variables - the issue characteristics of humanitarian crisis in North Korea itself and South Korean NGOs' ability to reframe the issue timely and effectively - were important factors explaining South Korea's aid decision to North Korea from 1997 to 2007. Ironically the consecutive humanitarian crisis contributed to the establishment of a favorable operational environment for South Korean NGOs' advocacy of aid to North Korea. However, South Korean NGOs' capacity to frame the issue was a critical factor in changes of South Korean government and civil society's stance for aid to North Korea.

Although early diagnosis of developmental delay is important, there are challenges in identifying cognitive status in developing countries because of limited human and financial resources to perform diagnostic tests. Moreover, diagnosis stability of developmental delay in children using neuropsychological tests (NPTs) can remain unsettled. The aim of this study is (1) to verify the effectiveness of a serious game (DoBrain), (2) to identify existing inconsistencies between NPTs, and (3) to explore the potential of the serious game as a complement to diagnostic tools. Eligible children who had completed results of NPTs were selected (n=119/235; 116/235; case, control). With these children's scores, we performed the Mann- Whitney U test to investigate the effectiveness of the serious game by comparing the improvement of scores in both groups. Among the participants, we additionally selected a case group to identify the potential of the serious game for detecting mild developmental delay. Using the results of the CGI-S as a baseline, we defined the participants whose scores indicated more than mild illness (=2 points) in at least one area as the suspected group. The score improvement related to memory in case group was greater than that of the control group (p0.05). Furthermore, four of the NPTs were not inconsistent, and the sensitivity/specificity of DDST-II was the highest score considering CGI-S results as the ground truth (0.43; 0.96). Additionally, games measuring discrimination, velocity, memory, and spatial perception showed statistical significance (p0.05). This study verifies that the serious game can help specific cognitive areas and suggests that the serious game could be used as a low-cost and unconstrained spatiotemporal alternative to NPTs.

This study explores how Japanese development non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had altered their patterns of advocacy and accountability after changes in political structure that occurred in the 2000s when the Democratic Party of Japan created the two-party system and the Liberal Democratic Party took power again. After the 1990s, a unique feature of development NGOs actively performing advocacy and accountability within the ODA domain, while also eagerly reaching political authorities by forming networks, was found. Behind their efforts were the appearance and expansion of the Democratic Party of Japan through its systematic and political ties. As concluding remarks, the active participation of civil society not only represents the level of internal resources mobilized within the civil society network, but is also an indicator on how supportive the policy space at the bottom is towards civil society.

According to traditional wisdom in the foreign aid community, a donor country's official development assistance policy tends to be influenced by the political regimes' ideology. A progressive government is more likely to be humanitarian in implementing foreign aid, whereas a conservative one is apt to be more strategic and economic-interest oriented. Given South Korea's regime change between conservatives and progressives from the Roh Tae-woo (1988) to the Lee Myung-bak (2012) administrations, this article attempts to identify shifts in South Korea's aid allocation in terms of economic, security strategic, social and humanitarian aspects. The empirical analysis of the South Korean case demonstrates that aid policies did not follow the ideological differences between governments. One of the key results is that aid allocation is more attributed to the distinct characteristics of the official development assistance management system and policies than to the party politics of South Korea.

Active participation of the recipient governments and the beneficiaries is an essential factor in carrying out international development projects. Despite ongoing theoretical discussion on the effects of participation by the recipient governments and the beneficiaries in international development projects, there has been relatively little empirical analysis of the effects of their participation in development projects. To fill this gap, this study examines the relationship between the participation of the recipient governments and beneficiaries, and projects outcomes conducted by IFAD by validating two hypotheses. First, the higher financial contribution rate of the recipient governments results in lower evaluation results of international development projects. Second, the higher financial contribution rate of the beneficiaries leads to higher evaluation results of international development projects. In order to verify these two hypotheses, this study analyzed 166 of the IFAD Project Completion Report Validations. We did ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses for the panel data made from them. As a result of the analyses, the inverse relationship between the participation of the recipient governments and the outcome of the assessment holds true. On the other hand, the higher involvement of the beneficiaries leads to better results in the assessment. The results reaffirm prior research that suggested that the involvement of the recipient governments has a negative impact on project performance and that the participation of the beneficiaries has a positive impact on the projects performance. This study adopted &rdquo, financial contributions&rdquo, as the variable to analyze the participation of the recipient governments and the beneficiaries, since it utilized IFAD data, the research focuses on the agriculture sector in terms of international development cooperation. The applicability of these findings in other areas of international development cooperation therefore to be tested in future research.

A majority of people in developing countries suffer from chronic hunger due to food crises and poverty. This has attracted humanitarian organizations specializing in addressing hunger, food security and poverty to set up efforts aimed at reducing hunger and poverty among vulnerable communities. This study aims to evaluate the achievements of the Saemaul Zero Hunger Communities Project (SZHCP) of the World Food Program (WFP) implemented by Good Neighbors International (GNI) in partnership with Tanzanian and Bangladesh local governments, which ran from 2014 to 2018 in selected local communities in Tanzania and Bangladesh. The project targeted the most vulnerable communities to improve their livelihood and rural development programs in terms of food security, income generation, education, and infrastructure improvement through community-based activities. To collect information and data for evaluation, we conducted field research such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and household surveys in the target villages of the SZHCP in Tanzania and Bangladesh. Using qualitative analysis, difference-in-difference estimation, and linear regression on surveys of 1142 respondents, we show that the SZHCP significantly improved the livelihoods of beneficiaries in relation to zero hunger, and also increased income generation and promoted positive social changes. It has also helped to strengthen the capacity of communities to run development projects themselves. This study provides evidence-based analysis that could allow stakeholders and researchers to more fully engage with future community-based projects.

At the HLF-3 in Accra in 2008, developed and developing countries recognized civil society as an independent development actor in its own right, and they agreed to create a legal and institutional environment enabling CSO contributions to development. The Korean government also announced the Plan for the Advancement of ODA in 2010, which committed it to an unprecedented increase in the volume of NGO assistance and called for methods of multidimensional cooperation with NGOs. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to analyze the government-NGO partnership for development cooperation in Korea. After reviewing the mechanisms of OECD DAC members` partnerships with their NGOs and then Korean government-NGO partnerships in a comparative perspective, we conclude that both the Korean government and development NGOs are still facing many challenges for better partnership. For NGOs, these are accountability and sustainability issues, a tendency toward service delivery, proselytizing activities of Christian faith-based organizations, and a lack of capacity. For the government, it is uncertainty about its public commitment, an unclear vision and philosophy regarding ODA, an insufficient civil society partnership program, and a need for clear policy objectives for NGO support programs.

This paper aims to conduct a comparative study of South Korean and Japanese ODA policies. Koren has been generally considered to follow in Japan's footsteps in its ODA policies and in its institucional mechanisms. Are Korea's ODA programs simply modeled after those of Japan? This paper tries to test the validity of the hypothetical proposition that Korea's foreign assistance development policy was established based on the Japanese experience by conducting comparative inquiries on the philosophy and purpose, implementation system, and the regional allocarion and sectoral distriburion. After analyzing the two countries, this paper argues that even though Korea and Japan share many traits in ODA polices. Korea is more likely to pursue humanitarian objeccives with its ODA rather than the politico-strategic goals of Japan.