OECD Development Co‑operation Peer Reviews: Korea 2024

Annex A. Progress since the 2018 DAC Peer Review recommendations

 

2018 Peer Review Recommendations	Progress
1. CIDC, in line with its mandate, should continue to improve Korea’s ODA system to ensure that strategic and operational decisions are made at the appropriate level to best support effective and efficient programming.	Partially implemented. The Office for International Development Cooperation was created under the Office for Government Policy Coordination (OPC) to support the CIDC’s strengthened role. Finding a balance between providing more strategic-level oversight and accountability, on one hand, and quite operational-level decision making and direction on the other is a work in progress.
2. All agencies managing Korea’s ODA should take a more strategic approach to results management and evaluation, including by:  making better use of risk analysis and the need to learn to decide what to evaluate.  sharing lessons from evaluations and internal learning processes with all stakeholders; and  continuing to improve public access to information on project level financing and development results.	Partially implemented. The Framework Act places strong emphasis on performance management and reinforces the role of the OPC in mandating and using evaluations to inform future programming. There is good sharing of lessons with stakeholders but not necessarily across the whole Korean system. ODA portals are being revamped, and communicating to the public remains a work in progress. There is an abundance of evaluations and criteria for prioritisation of what is evaluated based on project amounts and preliminary screening conducted by the Expert Committee for Evaluation.
3. The government should set out a timeframe and targets for allocating 0.3% of its national income as ODA by 2030 and sustain its efforts to untie its aid and to focus resources on countries most in need.	Partially implemented. In 2022, Korea provided 0.17% of GNI as ODA (USD 2.8 billion). According to the CIDC, an ODA budget equivalent to USD 4.8 billion for 2024 was approved by the National Assembly in December 2023. This amount would exceed 0.25% of GNI although the 3rd Comprehensive Strategy for International Development (2021-25) no longer puts forward an ODA-to-GNI target. Korea’s bilateral ODA allocations reflect support for least developed countries (LDCs) and fragile states. Total net ODA to LDCs amounted to 0.06% of Korea’s GNI in 2022. At the same time, 35.8% of Korea’s gross bilateral ODA (USD 877.1 million) went to LDCs, a bigger share than the DAC average for LDCs of 22.9% of gross bilateral ODA. Support to fragile contexts reached USD 1 billion in 2021, representing 41.5% of Korea’s gross bilateral ODA. Korea allocated 17.2% of gross bilateral ODA to land-locked developing countries in 2021 (USD 421.2 million) and 3.7% of gross bilateral ODA to small island developing states (USD 91.3 million).
4. Korea – including through its partner county offices and embassies – should strengthen, in partnership with government, its strategic view of its unique contribution to each country context. This may include:  deepening policy dialogue with partner governments, using existing coordination mechanisms where possible; and  furthering strategic-level policy dialogue with other development co-operation providers, starting with a deeper engagement in existing donor coordination mechanisms.	Partially implemented. Deepening policy dialogue with partner governments may have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic when many programmes came to a halt and the government extended some policy or programme-based loans. But there is still room for higher-level dialogue beyond individual programmes and projects, which could be done in partnership with other donors through sector working groups and regular forums.
5. Korea should ensure that the process leading to individual project requests is more robust and inclusive, and that partner governments are in a position to sustain investments once Korea's funding ends.	Partially implemented. Evaluations consistently highlight that inclusive processes at the onset make projects more sustainable, and these remain a key challenge highlighted in the EDCF and KOICA evaluations.
6. Korea should update its humanitarian strategy, and consider the scope of relevant legislation, to reflect the changing nature of its humanitarian assistance and to ensure that its humanitarian assistance, peace-keeping efforts and development co-operation are coherent and complementary.	Implemented An amended humanitarian strategy and HDP implementation plan are in place. The Overseas Emergency Relief Act (formal legislation) has broadened humanitarian assistance beyond emergency relief and included disaster rehabilitation and early recovery, disaster prevention and crisis reduction, and support for protracted crises.
7. Korea should increase its co-ordination with other donors and organisations to design collective outcomes in fragile contexts and within relevant policy groups working on fragility.	Partially implemented. In fragile and conflict-affected contexts, Korea participates in co-ordination mechanisms, including in groups led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and consults with other donors and international organisations to keep up to speed on context and in-county developments. Its growing Conflict and Fragility Program is increasingly used to engage and design more collective action and outcomes in fragile contexts.
8. In order to respond to new opportunities and challenges as they arise, Korea should:  streamline project approval processes; and  continue to decentralise authority for project-level decisions to the field to improve its ability to respond to new opportunities and challenges as they arise.	Partially implemented. KEXIM-EDCF has developed a greater country presence and is piloting further delegation of authority in a few large country offices. KOICA and KEXIM-EDCF have increased their staff presence in country offices. While embassies and country offices identify new projects, most decisions are made centrally with little flexibility to deviate from the N-2 programming cycle.
9. To increase effectiveness and improve communication among all stakeholders, Korea should:  develop a comprehensive overview of its activities in priority partner countries  ensure that embassy or partner country offices manage and co-ordinate all requests from partner governments  monitor the impact of Korea’s ongoing efforts to align systems and processes and  develop measures to enhance synergies and rationalise the number of activities across the programme.	Partially implemented. Country partnership strategies provide an overview of Korea’s ongoing programmes in priority partner countries, and ODA councils work to co-ordinate Korean grants and loans from across the Korean government. Some overseas offices have increased collaboration across overall efforts more than others have and also work to identify opportunities for synergies and larger, more integrated programmes. It is not clear how the impact of Korea’s efforts is assessed overall and at partner country level other than programme by programme.
10. Korea should review the capacity and skills needed across the whole of its development co-operation system. This assessment should be used to develop a workforce plan that enables Korean agencies to develop appropriate expertise to deliver on Korea’s objectives.	Partially implemented. The CIDC has approved a human resource plan. While the expected surge in ODA requires an increase in the number of ODA professionals, this is unlikely to be met by more than a marginal increase in staffing. High rates of rotation in the MoFA and KOICA and lack of technical expertise in partner countries are still important challenges.
11. Korea’s government should strengthen policy coherence aspects of its response to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in relation to developing countries, including through:  better co-ordinating its legislation and policies on domestic and international sustainable development; and  building a mechanism for arbitrating between economic, social and environmental policy priorities in the future, taking into account Korea’s positive and negative spillovers on developing countries.	Partially implemented. The 2022 Framework Act on Sustainable Development elevated the National Council on Sustainable Development to a Presidential Committee and the Fourth National Basic Plan for Sustainable Development provides a foundation to look at policy coherence. In 2021 and 2018, research and case studies were commissioned on thematic priorities. There is an opportunity to expand work of the Council to co-ordinate sustainable development policies and consider transboundary effects on partner countries.
12. Korea’s government should clarify and deepen the partnerships it seeks with civil society through a normative framework acknowledging the different roles of civil society, including as an implementing partner and as an independent development actor in its own right.	Implemented The Policy Framework for Government-Civil Society Partnership and accompanying implementation plan fulfil this recommendation. Continuing to build civil society capacity and implementing the plan will also require channelling more resources to and through civil society.