아프리카ㆍ중동

Could the Saemaul Movement Contribute to Achieving the first Millennium Development Goal in Africa?

The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed by 191 nations in 2000, resolved to spare no efforts to free the world from the dehumanizing conditions of poverty. The Declaration gave rise to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which represent a set of targets and indicators that attempts to measure progress in achieving a significant reduction in poverty towards 2015. The first MDG is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and the target attached to this goal is to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day. As the 2015 target date draws nearer, less than six years away, the global economy suffers from the severest economic downturn since the 1929 Great Depression in America. Consequently, the progress made in the recent years in Africa, are gradually being threatened by sluggish economic growth, limited resources, dwindling trade opportunities, and increasingly devastating effects of climate change. For instance, the recent food price hikes have caused an additional 28 million people in the sub-Saharan Africa to sink in poverty, gradually wiping out the previous progresses recorded in achieving the MDGs.

However, some countries have achieved all the MDGs and have adopted MDG+ targets, while African countries are still lagging behind. According to the 2009 edition of the Development Support Monitor (DSM), in Africa, poverty head country rate has only decreased slightly in the last three decades from 53% in 1981 to 51% in 2005. In fact, about 75% of Africans live in rural areas and the vast majority of which depends solely on agriculture for their livelihoods, and are suffering from chronic hunger, malnutrition and severe poverty. Thus, rural development is very crucial in alleviating poverty and stimulating growth, and in fact, the World Development Report 2008 notes that improving the living conditions in rural Africa will contribute towards poverty alleviation in the region..

Against this background, the paper suggests the adaptation of the Saemaul Movement (SM) as a strategy for Africa in meeting the first UNMDG.

SM, being a Korean community-driven development campaign, aims at strengthening the capacities of people so as to make independent decisions to alleviate poverty. It is a bottom-up approach that is based on the principles of diligence, self-help, cooperation and the ‘can do spirit’ among the inhabitants of rural communities. In the 1970s, the Korean government implemented the SM to galvanize communities into upgrading their own living conditions. It continues to spread to other parts of the developing world as a potent movement for driving towards achieving the MDGs at local levels. The SM has recorded success stories in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.
It is pertinent to present a success story in Africa in order to justify the effectiveness of the SM in alleviating poverty and improving rural livelihoods. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a series of SM pilot projects were initiated in five of the most impoverished rural communities. The evolution of the project is captured in the table below:
 

In order for Africa to drive towards achieving the first MDG, such success stories in the Congolese rural communities need to be up-scaled and out-scaled. According to the 2009 DSM survey amongst the African rural poor, the poor noted that: ‘we do not want hand-outs, we have hands, we have brains – give us the capacity.’ In other words, the poor are willing to take responsibilities for improving their deplorable conditions if their capacities are strengthened. By implication, Africans are willing to imbibe the SM principles in order to reduce poverty. This further confirms that encouraging the private sector (through some of the elements of the SM) remains a critical step in charting a course towards achieving the first MDG in Africa.

Regarding Africa’s readiness and willingness to adapt and implement the SM, there could never have been a better time because the region experienced an impressive improvement in its macro economy, as measured by an average growth rate of about 6% between 2001 and 2008, especially, when compared to the economic backwardness in the 1990s. In addition, the political climate is much friendlier in the past decade because conflicts have mostly subsided, and there is increasingly supportive political leadership and strong commitment to development. However, there is a need to conduct a series of cross-communities studies in order to assess the microeconomic and social conditions at the simplest implementable units in order to successfully adapt the SM to reducing poverty on the continent.

Korea, once one of the poorest countries in the world, has developed rapidly and reduced poverty successfully in a short period of time, through the implementation of the SM. In 2008, the World Bank World Development Indicator Database ranked Korea (South) as the 30th richest country in the world, and the 5th richest in Asia, given its Gross Domestic Product (purchasing power parity) per capita of US$19, 115. According to the Central Intelligence Agency 2003 estimates, 15% of South Koreans live below national poverty level, compared with above 50% for most African countries. Since Korea is willing to offer a comprehensive rural development capacity-building program to help Africa overcome its rising poverty levels, it is imperative for Africa to adapt the SM as it strives towards achieving the first MDG within the next 6 years.

In addition, Korea is committed to improving its relations with Africa. Thus, a strategic partnership through experience sharing and capacity building between the two parties could be specifically targeted at achieving the first MDG in Africa. A form of a Korea – Africa Saemaul Movement Forum, which will aim at achieving the MDG 1 in Africa, could be a smart strategy for the Korean Government. The forum will be a joint platform where the representatives of the two partners formulate pragmatic policies to reduce poverty and hunger in Africa. The successes recorded at each stage of implementing poverty-alleviation SM initiatives, as well as their policy implications could be published in a form of policy briefs for development practitioners in the developing world. While this will further enhance the global image of Korea(by promoting the Korea’s ‘nation brand’ project) and consolidate its development cooperation programs towards Africa, it will contribute to widening the poverty alleviation ‘policy space’ in Africa, yielding a win-win relation for the two partners.