한국의 대(對)미얀마 공적개발원조 (ODA)정책의 실태분석과 정책과제

Abstract

Foreign aid, as described by OECD, as the financial, technical assistance and commodity flow, has been an essential tool for the socio-economic development of developing countries. Myanmar has been long considered a pariah state, afflicted by ethnic conflict and civil wars while under the rule of an oppressive military junta in the past 50 years. It has long been closed off to the rest of the world, and the economic sanctions of the west made the country very poor in all aspects of socio-economic development. Since President Thein Sein took office in March 2011, the new government initiated a political liberalization that has reduced repression and created avenues for participation in the institutions designed by the military the decades before. In 2012, Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and other members of the National League for Democracy Party (NLD) had entered the political circle, and international relations have improved rapidly in response to changes in domestic political situation. Myanmar Government showed a visible move to improve international relations and actively sought out international support for its development and modernization agenda. In light of this, South Korea has designated Myanmar as one of the twenty-three priority development cooperation countries for the Korean Government in March 2015. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Korea’s ODA Policy towards Myanmar, and examine whether the interests of the donor country, Korea, meet the needs of the recipient country, Myanmar, and then suggest policy tasks to improve policy implementation. First, this paper examines Korea’s ODA policy which successfully led the country to escape poverty and hunger, making a remarkable transformation from a recipient country of official development assistance to a significant donor, that has been returning what it once received from the international community. And then, the current state of political and economic situation in Myanmar, National Comprehensive Development Plan (NCPD) and Aid Management System are being analyzed in order to evaluate whether Korea’s ODA projects meet Myanmar’s needs. Korea’s development assistance to Myanmar is relatively small when compared to that of other East Asian countries. However as Myanmar has moved up in the priority list for aid recipient countries, it is expected to be further increased in the coming years. Korean Government supports Myanmar Government in accordance with Myanmar’s NCPD and economic policy, by focusing on four priority areas and implementation measures including Governance, Rural Development, Transport and Energy. Three projects from these sectors, i.e. (1) The Project on Agricultural and Rural Development (Myanmar Sae-Maul-Undong) in Rural Development Sector, (2) The Establishment of Myanmar Law Information System in Governance Sector and (3) The Korea-Myanmar friendship bridge (Dala) project in Transport Sector are selected and reviewed to evaluate Korea’s ODA policy towards Myanmar and how the projects affected on rudimentary socio-economic development level of Myanmar. Based on the outcomes of the analysis and evaluations carried out in this paper, it can be concluded that in order to maximize aid effectiveness and create a favorable environment for developing countries to reduce poverty and to achieve a sustainable socio-economic development, the interests of the donor country and the needs of the recipient country must be mutually coherent.