S. Korea, UNDP to bolster cooperation in tackling global challenges

By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the U.N. Development Program (UNDP)
were to sign pacts Monday on establishing a "policy center" for the aid agency in
Seoul and bolstering cooperation in efforts to achieve its Millennium Development
Goals (MDG), officials said.

Under an agreement to be signed by South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan
and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, the UNDP will set up the "Seoul Policy Center
for Global Development Partnership" early next year. Clark, formerly prime
minister of New Zealand, arrived here on Sunday for a two-day stay.
"It is a sort of a knowledge center tasked with helping craft policies for
assisting underdeveloped countries in the Asia-Pacific region on the basis of
South Korea's experience in having become a benefactor from a recipient, " a
foreign ministry official said.
The UNDP has decided to shut its decades-old office in Seoul, reflecting the
change in South Korea's international status from a developing country to donor.
South Korea is poised to join the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), a
club of two dozen major benefactors, next week.
South Korea, now one of the world's leading economies, rose from the ashes of the
1950-53 Korean War and achieved rapid economic and social development with the
help of the global development network.
The UNDP Seoul office, which opened in 1963, stopped formal assistance to South
Korea in 2000 and has since downsized its operation, playing more of a symbolic
role as a liaison between Seoul and the U.N.
Yu and Clark will also sign an agreement to launch trust funds that will support
joint efforts by South Korea and the UNDP in fulfilling the MDGs, which aim to
drastically reduce global poverty and child mortality, along with the spread of
AIDS, malaria and other diseases prevalent in poor countries by 2015.
The MDGs also seek to promote gender equality and maternal health as well as
ensure environmental sustainability and universal primary education
"Under the agreement, South Korea and the UNDP will push for joint projects in
the global fight against poverty, climate change, and other difficulties," the
official said.
The UNDP chief flies out to Japan, the next stop on her regional tour that will
also take her to China.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)