1. Korea should implement its 2022 Framework Act on Sustainable Development to strengthen Korea’s policy coherence for sustainable development and:
a. fully operationalise the National Council on Sustainable Development to co-ordinate domestic and international policies and their effects on the sustainable development goals
b. build on the National Council’s mandate to review implementation plans of ministries and consider and address the transboundary effects of domestic policies on developing countries, starting with a few key areas
c. leverage the role of the CIDC to bring a development perspective to inter-ministerial policy deliberations.
2. Korea should strengthen strategic partnerships and dialogue with MDBs, other multilateral partners and bilateral providers beyond the current level of engagement, mainly focused on project support, in order to gain more influence and build trust in line with Korea’s ambition to scale up ODA.
3. Building on its Green ODA Strategy, Korea should integrate climate considerations into development co-operation across all implementing ministries and agencies, including by accelerating efforts to roll out the EDCF Climate Change Impact Response Framework and the KOICA Climate Result Management Framework.
4. Korea should consider the cross-government capacity review alongside evidence and learning from evaluations to help prioritise increased ODA volumes to implementers with high performance management capacity, in line with the 3rd Mid-term Strategy objectives.
5. The government should allocate ODA increases in line with needs and absorptive capacity of partners by encouraging the full use of existing modalities, including programme-based loans and policy dialogue.
6. To increase effectiveness and sustainability, Korea should engage in more upstream and regular policy dialogue with partner country authorities, partners and stakeholders on broader reform processes and the policy environment to help ensure the financial sustainability of its programming, using existing co-ordination mechanisms where possible.
7. Korea should strengthen the capacity of Korea’s civil society to deliver effectively and incentivise partnering with local civil society to broaden the reach of Korea’s programming, strengthen local capacity and foster locally led development.
8. Building on lessons from the CIDC’s pilot to create integrated programmes and the work of the grant and loan committees organised by the MoFA and MoEF to bridge and sequence programmes, Korea should delegate more authority to partner country offices to deepen dialogue at country level including by giving them the authority to scope, identify, co-create, manage, and adapt large-scale, integrated programmes.
9. Korea should increase the number of qualified staff working in development across government to scale up high-quality programming. In particular, the government should find ways to incentivise longer periods between rotations in development co-operation posts to help build trust and stronger partnerships, increase the number of staff working in partner countries, and further empower and promote locally hired staff to support a strong country presence.
10. To further expand private sector operations and private finance mobilisation including from local investors in partner countries, Korea should:
a. provide high-level political leadership and signal support for implementing agencies to increase their risk appetite for private sector operations
b. continue to expand untied aid modalities including co-financing with MDBs and budget support to improve the business enabling environment in partner countries
c. further incentivise blended finance pilots including through programmes and facilities that integrate loans, grants, and technical assistance and cross-agency knowledge sharing.