More than gratitude in Colombia`s aid package

Colombia, the only Latin American country to come to the defense of South Korea during the North`s invasion in the 1950s, has received an aid package that will go a long way.

Out of this year`s development aid budget, the Seoul government handed out to Colombia 6.9 billion won, a 500 percent increase from a year earlier.

"Colombia is an important partner country which participated in the Korean War," said a Foreign Ministry official.

"However, partly due to the absence of our KOICA office in the field, the volume of grant aid allocated to Colombia was not so large until now," added the official.

In 2008, Korea gave Colombia $1.3 million. In comparison, aid to Ethiopia was already close to $5 million in 2009.

"So we re-examined the importance of the country as our partner and set up a new KOICA office," said the official.

Although there are about 10 nations that have already received more than 10 billion won from Korea such as Afghanistan and the Philippines, the huge increase in aid to Columbia drew attention, especially considering that the KOICA office was only opened in the beginning of last year.

Furthermore, the Korea International Cooperation Agency`s rate of increase over last year`s budget was 18 percent.

KOICA explained that it is expanding aid to Colombia as a gesture of gratitude for being the only Central American country to participate in the Korean War.

However, in the case of Ethiopia, which also participated in the Korean War, there was only a 13 percent increase; from 4.4 billion won to 5 billion won.



"The establishment of KOICA offices is crucial in discovering and implementing large and feasible projects because they are located near the field," explained the Foreign Ministry.

Korea`s main area of concentration right now in Colombia is in the health sector.

There are two large ongoing projects in Colombia by KOICA, one is a $2 million project for the improvement of basic health, and the other is an $11.5 million project for the establishment of a rehabilitation center in Bogota, the nation`s capital.

"Also, it is noteworthy that the small amount of grant aid in the previous years contributed to the large increase," added the Ministry.

In neighboring Ecuador, KOICA has 80 active volunteers, whereas there are no current volunteers dispatched in Colombia.

The Ministry also added that other low middle income countries like Haiti, Peru and Paraguay are already receiving a "good amount" of development assistance from Korea.

"Colombia hadn`t received as much as they deserved," said MOFAT.

By increasing their development aid to Colombia, Korea has now demonstrated the importance they place on the Central American nation.

It is also worth noting that KOICA anticipates that the budget to Colombia will increase at a larger rate.

As for the future, KOICA will be funding the Korea-Columbia Friendship Rehabilitation Center at a cost 4.72 billion won and help build two hospitals in the country which will cost 1.15 billion won.

The balance will go to digitize the Choco region`s hospital resources.

Concerning the rehabilitation center in Bogota, the chief of the Colombian bureau Song Chang-hoon explained that the Colombian descendants of the Korean War are "suffering from the conflict against insurgents. The main objective of building the hospital is to help their rehabilitation and their return to society."

Song also said that "Colombia is showing much interest in improving relations with Asian nations, especially with Korea, in their hopes of entering APEC" (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum).

Observers are wondering why Colombia places its priority on Korea over China and Japan, which are very active in quantitative aid to developing nations and have, in the case of Japan, 10 times the budget for aid than Korea has to offer.

There is also a popular belief that Colombia can be a Central American bridge into the United States and that this "U.S. factor" affected Korea`s decision in expanding aid to Colombia.

The Korean government is also planning to foot the bill for a high level South-South Cooperation meeting, which is organized by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and will take place in Colombia at the end of this month.

This meeting will present an opportunity to share each nation`s experience in terms of South-South Cooperation while being a sort of pre-meeting for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development DAC high level meeting that will take place in Korea in 2011.

(yoav@heraldm.com)

(vitamin8510@gmail.com)







By Yoav Cerralbo and Kim Min-hyung