Just 10 years have passed since South Korea changed its status in the global society from an assistance beneficiary to an assistance provider. South Korea began to provide credit assistance to developing countries in 1987 when it established the economic cooperation development fund. However, the year South Korea escaped from the list of aid beneficiaries was 1995 when the nation repaid all debts to the World Bank. During the 10- year period, drastic changes occurred in Korean society, including the unexpected informatization revolution.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) affiliated with the United Nations (UN) announced on July 5 last year that South Korea ranked first in the appraisal of the digital opportunity index (DOI) among 180 countries in 2006, securing the top position for the second consecutive year.
The DOI is an important yardstick representing the degree of IT development of a country by using 11 indicators, including supply of IT infrastructure and the degree of offering opportunities.
Japan ranked second in the DOI, one step higher from 2005, whereas Hong Kong took fifth position, off three notches from the previous year. Like this, South Korea, which saw a drastic change from an assistance beneficiary to the world's best country in terms of DOI, gave a strong impression to developing countries.
South Korea is the sole country among 140-odd countries that became independent after World War II which has succeeded in entering the ranks of advanced countries. Moreover, South Korea has emerged as the best model for informatization, despite passing through the Asian financial crisis.
Accordingly, Korea's project to invite trainees from developing countries and offer them opportunities to learn about Korea's rapid development in economy and farming villages has gaining high popularity. The Saemaul Movement, or Korea's new village movement, is still the benchmarking object of developing countries, including China.
At present, the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion (KADO) is implementing the digital Official Development Assistance (ODA) project under the management of the Ministry ofInformation and Communication. The projects consist of dispatching Internet youth volunteer corps, constructing Information Access Centers (IAC) in developing countries, an invitation program for training foreign IT experts and cooperative projects with international organizations.
Dispatch of Internet youth volunteer corps
Since 2001, Korea has dispatched a total of 1,650 members of the Internet youth volunteer corps to 57 countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Argentina and Nigeria.
They are engaging in such IT service activities as the use of PC & Internet and PC repairs & maintenance, while staging PR activities for Korea's IT industry. Major targets of Internet education are students, general people, housewives, government officials, professors and teachers in developing countries.
The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and KADO built Internet plazas at major government offices and key places in 10 countries during 2002 - 2006. For example, the IAC in Romania has been used as an inspection course for informatization and a place for international conferences.
The IAC in the Philippines is used as an IT education center for executives and staff of small and medium-sized companies and the IAC in Egypt has become the benchmarking target of the Egyptian government in building IT-related facilities.
During the period from 2003 to the first half of 2006, a total of 552,162 people used the various facilities of the Internet plazas. As most equipment and facilities of the Internet plazas are Korean-made, users of the Internet plazas will recognize Korea's high level IT technology whenever they visit the plazas.
The degree of satisfaction about facilities of the Internet plazas and IT education is very high. For instance, users of the Internet plazas in eight countries including Cambodia, Romania, Vietnam, Egypt, the Philippines, Bulgaria and Laos, gave 9.416 out of the full mark of 10 in a customer satisfaction survey.
Besides, KADO has staged a campaign to send PCs of Love to underprivileged people in Korea and such developing countries as East Timor and Kyrgyzstan by collecting secondhand PCs, repairing and upgrading them.
Since 1997, KADO has been carrying out the campaign to supply secondhand PCs. A total of 100,000 PCs were sent to underprivileged people in developing countries including Russia, Uganda, Bulgaria, Myanmar, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Invitation programming
The project to invite chief information officers (CIOs), IT-related policymakers, and other IT experts of developing countries to the nation's IT training program could be called the core of digital diplomacy.
There is a high possibility that some foreign IT experts who come to Korea, learn about advanced IT technology and receive warm treatment will become information and communication-related ministers or top-ranking government officials in the near future, greatly contributing to improving relations between Korea and developing countries.
As of December 2006, a total of 2,102 experts in 97 developing countries participated in the nation's invitation program for IT training.
Digital Hallyu propelled by KADO covers almost all countries in the world except for some advanced countries. Through this project, the degree of recognition of Korea's IT ability by foreign trainees who participated in the training program went up from 4.06 before education to 6.29 after education out of a full mark of 7. The comparable figure climbed from 3.89 to 6.14 for the degree of recognition of Korea's IT industry.
Korean-type ODA
As seen above, the achievement of the MIC through the international cooperative project is outstanding. Considering that the ministry's annual budget is less than 5 billion won for the project, the degree of contribution to spreading the image of Korea's advanced IT technology to the world is distinguished.
In particular, KADO is maximizing the synergy effects of the project by effectively combining four sectors; dispatch of Internet youth volunteer corps, construction of information access centers (IAC) for developing countries, an invitation program for training of foreign IT experts and cooperative projects with international organizations.
One of the representative cases is the establishment of Digital Opportunity Forum on August 31 last year. The forum is a global organization consisting of 2,102 CIOs and IT experts in 99 developing countries who learned about advanced IT through the Korea IT Learning Program, which started in 1998 for overseas IT experts.
There are many international IT-related forums. However, it is the first time that a gathering of experts in almost all developing countries has been established to reduce information gap.
In line with this, KADO has been operating the KADO World Net, which connects IT experts in developing countries who once participated in the Korea IT Learning Program and enables them to exchange information on IT with each other.
