SINCE April 1, 1991 when the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) was established, it has been serving as a platform with which the Republic of South Korea reaches out to the world in terms of grant in aid and technical cooperation programmes. Having risen from the category of a nation which once rated as a “bottomless pit” to a ‘developed economy’, the Korean government has been using KOICA to inspire many developing countries and provide development modules for them to emulate. Its ultimate objective revolves around its key slogan: “Making a better world together.”
A brief on KOICA says: “In particular, Korea has the unique experience of developing from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the most economically advanced, as recently demonstrated by Korea’s entry into the OECD/DAC (Development Assistance Committee) on November 25, 2009. The know-how and experience Korea gained from this transition are invaluable assets that allow KOICA to efficiently support the sustainable socio-economic development of its partner countries and to offer them hope for a better world.”
The KOICA mustard seed has spread to 44 countries in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Pacific, Latin America and others alike. Records showed that Korea has laid out targets to attain 0.25 per cent of GNI in Official Development Assistance (ODA) which would amount to $2.8billion in 2015. As for KOICA, its budget has drastically increased by almost 30 times from 17.4 billion won in 1991 to 499 billion won in 2012. A document gave insight into the huge bill.
It says: “In the past, development cooperation efforts were focused mainly on meeting the Basic Human Needs (BHNs) of developing countries and on fostering their Human Resources Development (HRD). However, the focus has now broadened to promoting sustainable development, strengthening partnerships with developing partners, and enhancing the local ownership of beneficiaries. Additionally, global concerns such as the environment, poverty reduction, and gender mainstreaming, have gained significant importance in the international community.”
According to the “2011 UNESCO Global Monitoring Report”, “more than 795 million adults are illiterate, around 17% of the world’s adult population. Women make up nearly two-third of the total. Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia account for 73% of the global. Globally, there were still 67 million children out of school children in 2008. More than one-third of these children lived in low income countries.”
Although Nigeria and the Republic of South Korea opened diplomatic ties in 1980, KOICA berthed in Abuja in 2008 but with hurricane impacts on the nation’s development. The Chief Representative of KOICA in Nigeria, Jung Sang-Hoon said the agency’s mission centres on the target of putting SMILE on Nigerians through professionalism, passion, creativity and integrity.
Working in close collaboration with the Federal Ministry of National Planning in the last five years, more than 713 public officials at the federal and state levels had benefited from different capacity-building related courses in Korea. Most of these officials are in charge of development plans in their various offices underscoring South Korea’s emphasis on human capacity enhancement.
Hinging its success story on human capacity development, Korea has designed many courses to assist Nigeria to address the challenges facing it in public service, especially the issue of red-tapism. The training programmes for Nigerians border on the following: vocational training; human resource development, governance, agriculture, education crime prevention; GIS remote sensing; and pharmaceutical regulatory affairs management.
KOICA achievements in the last five years in Nigeria
In the last five years, KOICA has spent about $20million on various intervention programmes in the country. Besides human capacity training for more than 713 public officials, six to seven candidates have been selected in 2013 for the summer term fellowship programme(Master’s Degree) to “provide opportunities for candidates from partner countries to enhance technical and administrative skills to enable them to contribute to the country’s development.
Some of the candidates are Farouk Umar Hamed; Omolara Ogunruku; Uzokwe Chukwuemeka; and Bernard Adebayo. On the training of the candidates, KOICA Office in Nigeria said: “The agency embarks on specific courses yearly that are tailor-made to fit the Nigerian situation. For this year, the courses are being designed as multi-year programmes so as to serve as a long-term support that will ensure effectiveness and improve outcomes of the programmes.”
KOICA has also been assisting Nigeria on Millennium Development Goals and poverty reduction. For a nation with 10million out of school children, this has attracted the attention of the Korean government. Without prejudice to the Almajiri Scheme, KOICA constructed $1.8million model primary schools in Yola and Mayo-Belwa in Adamawa State; Akko and Barunde in Gombe State and the FCT. It has also organised capacity training scheme for teachers and school administrators in the affected states. When the Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike visited South Korea in March 2012, he admitted that KOICA has also built 37 classrooms in Kogi and Katsina States. Beyond partnership with Nigeria on Basic Education, there are indications that KOICA may facilitate collaboration between Nigerian and Korean universities. KOICA’s investment in the Education Sector in the country, from 2013 to 2018, is estimated to cost $15million Twenty rice millers have also been donated to victims of last year’s flood.
States that benefited from the gesture were Benue (10); Kogi (5); and Bayelsa(5). The millers which cost about N30m, was handed over to the Director-General of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Muhammed Sani Sidi, for onward distribution to the beneficiary state.
Also, in 2007, both KOICA and the National Poverty Eradication Programme(NAPEP) had an understanding to establish Cassava processing centres in Kogi, Enugu and Ogun states. The foot-dragging of the states led to the cancellation of 2012 KOICA budget for the project by Korean Government. After some hiccups, however, only Kogi State signed a Memorandum of Understanding on April 13, 2013 to establish a Cassava Processing Centre in Egbeda-Egga, near Kabba.
Findings revealed that the agricultural intervention by KOICA appears timely going by a World Bank report in April. The Korean agency quoted the report as stating: “Agriculture has contributed little to the economic growth of Nigeria in the last 15 years. The report stated that agriculture had contributed more to economic development in resource-poor nations than in resource-rich nations such as Nigeria. A major reason for this is rather than grow their economies through agriculture, resource-rich nations on the continent, including Nigeria have depended more on the rents from mineral resources.”
To address unemployment in the country, KOICA, in partnership with NAPEP and Arewa Transformation and Empowerment Initiative, has decided to put in place a multi-purpose vocational centre, called Nigeria-Korea Friendship Institute and Advanced Technology in Lokoja . Once the pilot project is successful, many of such centres will be sited in the country. The vocational centre will focus on mass training of unemployed youths in Automobile Engineering; Electrical Engineering; Information and Communication Technology and Welding and Fabrication. Other projects are a Teachers’ Training Institute in Enugu State and Model Schools in Oyo and Osun States. Another visible initiative of KOICA is the Nigerian-Korean collaboration to strengthen health and technology development infrastructure for neglected diseases. Multi-million dollar HIV/AIDS equipment had been donated to the Federal Ministry of Health for utilization at the Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja and University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku Ozall in Enugu State.
About five sessions of workshop had been held for stakeholders in the health sector with the goals being: establishment of pharmaceutical R &D and pilot manufacturing infrastructure; collaboration with private sector to improve local investment, public-private and private-private partnerships; and implementation of training and capacity building exchange programme with Korean experts under the auspices of the Africa Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation(ANDI).
Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, the Chief Representative of KOICA in Nigeria, Jung Sang-Hoon, said: “KOICA is helping Nigerian government to achieve Vision 20: 20. I want more aid for the people of Nigeria. I also want quality aid delivery for the Nigerian people.
“We are eager to see Nigeria utilising its full potential. We are ready to help you.”
Why is South Korea reaching out to the world?
Many states and Nigerians have not been able to catch the KOICA bug because of past experience where aid or grants were tied to modern economic slavery. But experience has shown that South Korea is only trying to give back to the world in the light of her experience. Since KOICA training programmes started, neither Nigeria nor its candidates had been forced to enter into any bond. Jung Sang-Hoon spoke on KOICA’s mission. He said: “Koreans want to share their dreams with their Nigerian counterparts. We fought poverty within a short time and we want Nigerians to adopt the “CAN DO” spirit.”
In November 2009 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oh Joon, said: “Half a century ago, Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world, endeavouring to emerge from the ashes of the Korean War to rebuild itself.” According to Oren Hadar, “Foreign economic assistance was essential to the country’s recovery from the Korean War in the 1950s and to economic growth in the 1960s because it saved Seoul from having to devote scarce foreign exchange to the import of food and other necessary goods, such as cement. It also freed South Korea from the burden of heavy international debts during the initial phase of growth and enabled the government to allocate credit in accordance with planning goals.”
Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has said the agency offers technical cooperation assistance to Nigeria with a mission toward making a better world together.
KOICA said: “Such assistance is in the areas of education, vocational training, agriculture and governance, with the mission of making a better world together,” it stated.
“The project’s aid programme supports the construction of schools, hospitals, vocational training centres and other indispensable facilities.’’
Testimony from Nigerian beneficiaries of KOICA
From encounters with most products of KOICA in Nigeria, the feel of Korea Miracle has changed their lives. In his testimony after a post-graduate course, a staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Naif Abdulsalam, said: “I think the uniqueness of Korea is their development experience. They started as an aid receiver and now they are one of the biggest donors in the world. I think Nigeria has a lot to learn from them. The way they developed, even in development studies, Korea is called the miracle of development. You can’t really pick up what is the thing about their development but I believe it’s genuine leadership, people’s commitment. I think those are the basic things lacking in Nigeria.”
On his part, the President of KOICA Alumni Association in Nigeria, Mr. Isa Hussein, who is a director with the News Agency of Nigeria, said: “Your life is transformed once you taste the Korean experience. You come back with zeal to do more for your country.”
An Assistant Director with the Federal Ministry of Environment, Mrs. Iniobong Awe, said she returned from Korea with a ‘doable’ vision. She said: “We saw South Korea before development and South Korea after development. And we saw the space of time. It is remarkable that it is doable, given the short time: 30 years.”
Reliving his KOICA training experience, a staff of the Department of Environmental Assessment of the Federal Ministry of Environment, Aliyu Moshood, said: “The Korean people see themselves as one. That is an important lesson I learnt. They are united and very proud of their country. You constantly hear them use words like ‘my country’, ‘my country.’ You hardly notice whether they have differences in terms of religion or culture…this is very unique to me as a Nigerian.”
The challenges facing KOICA mission in Nigeria
In spite of the eagerness of KOICA to promote enduring partnership with Nigeria in some key sectors, poor attitude on the part of some federal ministries, departments and agencies is waning down its enthusiasm. Jung Sang-Hoon said: “I can say that this is the fifth country where I have worked. I have served in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Jordan. This is my first experience in Africa but Nigerian experience is different.
“I find Nigeria more diplomatically challenging than any other country. There are problems of preparation and readiness on the part of Nigeria. When we are ready, those we relate with, and even some state governments, do not care about timing.
“For instance, some HIV/AIDS equipment worth $500,000 have been shipped to Nigeria but they have been at the port for many months. Officials of the Federal Ministry of Health have been attributing the delay to the customs clearance of the equipment at the port. In Niger State, we ought to finish a $1.6million rice processing factory in Bida one or two years ago, but we had difficulty in getting the right contractor. The contractor we got was bankrupted.
“Usually, KOICA’s aid volume is not thick but even at that, Nigerian public officials do not understand the value of our aid. They often calculate the money. Also, where there is need for matching grants, these will not be provided. We are hopeful that the situation will change.
“Due to attitude challenge and timing, we have had cause to cancel some intervention programmes. We are spending our money but some Nigerian public officials do not even persuade us to execute some projects for the citizenry.
Will Nigerians justify the investment of KOICA?
Having committed huge resources in the last five years to fill the nation’s manpower gaps, the ball is in the court of the beneficiaries to use the skills to effect changes in their various units. Jung Sang-Hoon said: “It is a matter of attitude; that is why we have a good story to tell the world.”
