{"id":962,"date":"2025-10-02T04:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/busan-yes-we-could\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T04:00:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:00:42","slug":"busan-yes-we-could","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/blogs\/busan-high-level-forum\/busan-yes-we-could\/","title":{"rendered":"Busan Yes We Could"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"content column wide left blog_post content view\" id=\"content\">\n<div class=\"edit image\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/files\/var\/broker\/storage\/images\/blogs\/busan-high-level-forum\/busan-yes-we-could\/180013-1-eng-gb\/busan-yes-we-could_full_view.jpg\" alt=\"Happy birthday, Momohime!, by Rinoninha\">\n\t<\/div>\n<article class=\"fader\">\n<header class=\"contents\">\n<div class=\"share\">\n\t\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    var addthis_config = {\n        ui_language = 'en'\n    }\n<\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis sharing\">\n\t<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style\" addthis:title=\"Busan: Yes we could\">\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_twitter\" tw:via=\"thebrokeronline\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_facebook\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_pinterest_share\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_preferred_4\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_compact\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style\"><\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<p>\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">var addthis_config = data_track_addressbar;<\/script><br \/>\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/files\/js\/300\/addthis_widget.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n\t<!-- AddThis Button END -->\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"addthis article_options\">\n\t\t<!-- \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/mandrill\/subscription\/add\/18362\/19807\">Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t -->\n    \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBusan: Yes we could<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"pubDate\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/experts-and-authors\/love-patrick\/\">Patrick Love<\/a>\t\t|<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t29 November 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"body contents\">\n\t<!-- body --><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">We\u2019ll start with a close-up of a woman on her knees. She seems to be scrubbing some tiles. We track back and see that in fact she\u2019s scrubbing the tyre tracks off a forecourt.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">We\u2019ll start with a close-up of a woman on her knees. She seems to be scrubbing some tiles. We track back and see that in fact she\u2019s scrubbing the tyre tracks off a forecourt. Back a bit more and we see that she and her colleagues are in front of a huge conference centre. It\u2019s covered with banners in Korean and English announcing the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, HLF4.&nbsp; There\u2019s a metaphor there somewhere, and it\u2019s called Busan, the host city and the world\u2019s fifth largest port.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">Busan is like a life-sized lesson for participants in this conference. As the Korean president Lee Myung-bak reminded delegates in his speech to the conference, when he was a child, this was one of the poorest countries in the world, and Busan was used to import food to stop people starving after the civil war. In From Poverty to Power, Oxfam\u2019s Duncan Green makes this point too, recalling that 50 years ago Korea\u2019s main export was wigs made from human hair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">Aid played a part in this, and it\u2019s worth looking at why Korea succeed in moving from being a recipient to a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the donor group that oversees Official Development Assistance (ODA).<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">The first lesson is that ODA has to be stable and reflect a long-term commitment. Korea could count on the US and Japan, and knew from one year to the next what funding to expect. Volatility makes programme management harder, or even impossible. I\u2019ve heard stories from the field of health, education, and other projects that were started, were going well and then had to be stopped because promised funding suddenly dried up. The OECD says that the value of aid is reduced by 15% to 20% when it is unpredictable and volatile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">For the outsider, one of the more opaque terms of the \u201caid community\u2019s\u201d particularly opaque jargon is \u201cownership\u201d. What it means is that countries receiving aid take charge of the process. Korea didn\u2019t always agree with its partners, but the results show that it knew best what strategy corresponded to its needs and resources. It wanted non-military aid rather than the guns, tanks and planes it was being offered, and it insisted on focusing on large enterprises rather than the small and medium-sized businesses foreign development experts told it were the key to success. Samsung and Sons would no doubt have been a great little shop for the latest Japanese and American gadgets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">However, to \u201cown\u201d the development process a country needs to develop a whole range of skills and institutions. For instance, if it\u2019s going to export, it needs lawyers who understand international trade rules and port managers who can get the goods onto the ships on time. This is what\u2019s meant by \u201ccapacity building\u201d. Countries can\u2019t be expected to acquire all these capacities on their own, but they shouldn\u2019t depend on outsiders either. While over 1500 foreign experts were sent to Korea between 1962 and 1971, over 5 times as many Koreans received training abroad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">Another thing about aid programmes is that the best ones become useless because they\u2019re no longer needed. In the 1950s and 1960s, practically all of Korea\u2019s foreign funding came from grants, but by the mid-70s, grants only represented 11% of funds, the rest being loans. The fact that Korea respected repayment conditions reassured private finance and encouraged foreign direct investment in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">Korea also proves that it\u2019s possible to recover from even the most desperate situation. At the end of the 1950s this was a mainly agricultural country still suffering from a war that had killed or injured over 2.5 million civilians. If conference delegates want to see a success story, they just have to look around them. And if they want a reminder that the fruits of economic success aren\u2019t always shared equally, they can look at those women scrubbing the ground they walk on.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">\n<p class=\"credit\">Photo credit main picture: Happy birthday, Momohime!, by Rinoninha<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<!-- body -->\n\t<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<section class=\"commentform content column wide left\">\n<div class=\"disqus_content\">\n\t\t\t<a name=\"comments\" id=\"comments\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"disqus_thread\"><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\t\t\t\t\/* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * *\/\n\t\t\t\tvar disqus_shortname = 'broker'; \/\/ required: replace example with your forum shortname\n\t\t\t\tvar disqus_identifier = '8204';\n\t\t\t\t\/* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * *\/\n\t\t\t\tfunction trackComment(comment)\n\t\t\t\t{\n\t\t\t\t\tconsole.log(comment);\n\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\tfunction disqus_config() {\n\t\t\t\t\tthis.callbacks.onNewComment = [function() { \n\t\t\t\t\tconsole.log(comment);\n\t\t\t\t\t}];\n\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t(function() {\n\t\t\t\t\tvar dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text\/javascript'; dsq.async = true;\n\t\t\t\t\tdsq.src = '\/\/' + disqus_shortname + 'https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/files\/blogs\/busan-high-level-forum\/.disqus.com\/embed.js';\n\t\t\t\t\t(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);\n\t\t\t\t})();\n\t\t\t<\/script><br \/>\n\t\t\t<!--\n\t\t\t<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href=\"http:\/\/disqus.com\/?ref_noscript\">comments powered by Disqus.<\/a><\/noscript>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/disqus.com\" class=\"dsq-brlink\">comments powered by <span class=\"logo-disqus\">Disqus<\/span><\/a>\n\t\t\t-->\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false,"raw":""},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Busan: Yes we could Patrick Love | 29 November [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template_2.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-962","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Busan: Yes we could \/ Busan High Level Forum \/ Blogs - The Broker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll start with a close-up of a woman on her knees. 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