(Yonhap Interview) Expert urges donor countries to coordinate aid programs

By Tony Chang
SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) -- The world's donor countries should increase their
coordination and harmonize the manner in which they provide aid to developing
countries in order to boost the overall effectiveness of such assistance, a U.S.
expert said Wednesday.
"Each aid organization has its own procurement rules, own audit rules, own
financial management rules, own monitoring evaluation system and they differ from
system to system," Johannes Linn, head of the Washington-based Wolfensohn Center
for Development said during an interview on the sidelines of an aid seminar in
Seoul.
The research center is part of the Brookings Institution, one of Washington's
oldest think tanks also based in the U.S. capital.
"Harmonizing those into joint auditing, parallel procurement rules, parallel and
similar or equal monitoring evaluation requirements and so on would facilitate
the management of the aid process tremendously," Linn said, noting that aid
effectiveness should be seen from the perspective of the recipient country.
"There is a strong presumption against tied aid, meaning that, (for example),
your aid is only given if countries buy Korean products with the aid. That is
generally regarded as reducing the effectiveness and desirability of aid."
Linn, a former World Bank vice president for Europe and Central Asia, noted that
sometimes aid groups end up competing with each other, with the result of
"costly, burdensome and sometimes duplicated" processes for recipients of the
aid.
"In some countries, there are maybe 20 or 30 private aid donors, in addition you
have 20 or 30 large international NGOs," he said, adding that the potential
beneficial effect of this many actors can be significantly reduced by such
competition.
South Korea, once a recipient of ODA, recently applied for membership in the OECD
Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The committee will decide whether to
accept Seoul's request in a meeting on Nov. 25. The committee has 23 members,
including the European Commission, and is the only OECD committee of which South
Korea is not yet a member.
Linn thought that Seoul's affiliation with the DAC was almost guaranteed and that
it would bring about more transparency to the overall ODA related decision making
process of the government.
South Korea received a total of US$12.7 billion from other nations in ODA until
1999, struggling in the early years to rise from the aftermath of the 1950-53
Korean War.
Seoul transformed itself into a benefactor in 2000. In May, the government
finalized a plan to increase its assistance to developing countries worldwide by
16.4 percent from 2008 to US$842 million this year.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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