Korean official development assistance increases by 11%

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Korea’s official development assistance (ODA) amounted to $3.13 billion last year, an increase of 11.4 percent compared to the previous year, according to data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

This puts the country at 14th place among the 31 OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member states.

Both bilateral aid ($2.3 billion), government assistance given directly to the government of another country, and multilateral aid ($830 million), indirect assistance given through international organizations, increased evenly, according to a press release from the Foreign Ministry introducing the OECD DAC data.

While the fluctuations of the won-dollar exchange rate have slowed compared to the previous year, investments and contributions to international financial organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have increased, the data showed.

Bilateral aid increased by 3.4 percent compared to the previous year, with both grant assistance and concessional loans increasing to $1.57 billion and $730 million, respectively.

As for grant assistance, support for social sectors such as education, health, public administration, humanitarian aid for overseas emergency relief and support for vulnerable communities increased by 2.6 percent compared to the previous year.

Concessional loans also increased by 5.1 percent compared to the previous year as loan support expanded due to increased financial demand from recipient countries for climate change responses and industrial development.

The total ODA amount from the 31 member countries of the OECD DAC was $223.7 billion, an increase of 6.2 percent compared to last year.

Additionally, the ratio of ODA to gross national income (GNI), which indicates the scale of ODA support relative to the size of countries’ economies, was 0.18 percent for Korea, an increase of 0.01 percentage points compared to the previous year.

“Despite the austerity fiscal policy, the ODA budget for 2024 had the largest ever increase of 31.1 percent to $4.7 billion, in order for Korea to perform a role commensurate with our growing status as a global power,” said the Foreign Ministry in a press release.

The Korean government plans to continue expanding the scale of ODA to actively respond to demands for international development cooperation, such as humanitarian support for conflict and disaster areas and responding to climate change.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]