The complex relationship between government and NGOs in international development cooperation: South Korea as an emerging donor country

Abstract

The South Korean government has sought an active partnership with domestic NGOs in pursuing international development cooperation. Their partnership can be categorized in two ways. One, the more common type, is that NGOs work with government offices by participating in established programs. In the second type of partnership, NGOs take a more independent position when important policy agendas are determined and often push the government to move in certain directions. Vibrant Korean NGOs usually align with more liberal rules and norms of foreign aid governance and advocate for these to their own government. The relationship between the government and NGOs in the area of development cooperation is essentially a partnership, as technical expertise and overseas aid allocation move their interaction away from divisive domestic politics. We named this partnership a “complex relationship” in which both functional and critical interactions occur. Three different types of relations – supplementary, complementary, and sometimes adversarial – co-exist across four interactive areas: volunteering services, development project implementation, development education, and policy advocacy.

Keywords:

• Government and NGOs
• complex relationship
• international development cooperation
• official development assistance (ODA)
• sustainable development

Acknowledgements

This article was developed from presentations at the 2015 Autumn Conference of the Korea Association for Policy Studies and at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Asian Association for Public Administration.

Notes

1. In the history of South Korea’s democratization, 1987 is considered as the year of “democratic transition” from authoritarian rule to democracy. Upon the massive demonstrations demanding return to a popular presidential election system, the Chun Doo-hwan government gave in, and a democratically elected president swore in his government the next year.

2. Good Neighbors(44), World Vision(36), Save the Children Korea(33), Global Civic Sharing(28), Korea Food for the Hungry International(22), Global Care(21), Plan Korea(21), Join Together Society Korea(19), One Body One Spirit(17), and Good People(17) (stat.koica.go.kr).