An Opportunity to Learn from Korea

On September 2th, 2012, Ethiopia hosted the conference on capacity building for Africa countries organized by the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. The conference was designed specifically to help African countries gain insight into capacity building and was held at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.

The KDI School was represented by Dean Nam Sang-Woo and Professor Jinsoo Lee. Notable among the presenters were a number of KDI School Alumni including Severin Kapinga (MPP 2011, Tanzania), Francisca Twintoh (2011, MPP/ED, Ghana), El-Metawaly Mohamed Tolba (MPP 2010, Egypt), Gilbert Cheruyot Kipkirui (MPP 2009, Kenya), and Dr Tadese Kuma Worako (MDP, 1999, Ethiopia).

The seminar began with opening remarks from Dean Nam, who stressed the importance of the seminar and the role that capacity building plays in development. He also underscored Korea’s increasing involvement with developing countries in helping them with strategies aimed at building capacity.

The seminar had three sessions each which included presentations on specific African country cases followed by a discussion. The first presentation was on Ethiopia’s experiences in public sector reform. The presentation highlighted among other things the challenges facing capacity building such as financing, the country’s unique demographics, transparency and accountability. The presentation also showed a number of successes that had been scored in implementing different decentralization strategies such as improved public financial management and the strengthening of oversight institutions.

Professor Jinsoo Lee presented Korea’s economic growth through capacity reinforcement and implications for developing countries. He gave an overview of Korea’s economic growth from its poor years in the 1960s till it achieved rapid economic growth to be ranked as one of the most significant trading economies in 2011. He showed that it was an economy built on an outward-looking development strategy, backed by strong capacity building through the strengthening of its economic think-tanks such as KDI who provided timely and quality research-backed policy direction. Professor Lee also indicated in his presentation that government had a role to play not only in implementing the adopted strategies but in coordinating the economy in case of market failure. Other important government actions included, recruitment of a merit based civil service and helping establish career bureaucrats.

Further case studies were presented for countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya. Inter-spaced between the presentations were discussions moderated by Dean Nam. The conference ended with Dean Nam offering his concluding remarks.

Haftom Teferi (Phd 2012, Ethiopia) was one of the participants in the conference. He appreciated the knowledge and key insights he had gained through the conference. He noted that the fact that Korea was once as poor as most African countries gave him hope that African countries too can make key gains in development and rise out of the mires of poverty.

By Hamusute Keith 2012 MPP, Zambia