UNPOG UNECA Initiative on the Application of Saemaul Undong Kofi Torgbuiga United Nations Project Of

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UNPOG UNECA Initiative onthe Application of
Saemaul Undong Kofi TorgbuigaUnited Nations
Project Office on Governance(UNPOG)
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Saemaul Movement

• Saemaul New Village
• ? Re-building
• ? Revitalization
• Key Underlying Principles

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Distinctive Features of Saemaul
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Distinctive Features of Saemaul - CONTD
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Historical Context Korea

• Colonial past 36 years of Japanese occupation
• Korean war 1950 1953
• ? Near-total
  devastation
• ? Division of the
  country
• ? Economic social
  foundation in
• urgent need of
  revival
• Process of economic rebuilding
• ? Poverty reduction
  the first priority

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Government Leadership and Support

• Material KEY
  ELEMENT
• Capital
• Technical
• Administrative
• Educational
• Incentive-related

Leadership and support which actively encourage
local communities decision making processes
STRONG POLITICAL WILL
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Transformation of Mentality
Capitulation of the Saemaul Spirit

• Self-help
• Sense of ownership
• Community participation

Policy Implementation
Identification of Needs
Policy Design
Focus independent sustainable development
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Process of Implementation
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Saemaul Projects
Major Projects by Steps

• 1974 average rural household income gt urban
  income
• 98 of all rural villages became self-help
  villages

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Supportive Roles of Government
Rural Community

• General Guidance
• Incentives
• Monitoring
• Evaluation
• Information Sharing
• Managing
• Performance

Central Government
Regional/Local Government
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Motivating Change

• Saemaul Education/ Training Programme
• Full Active Utilization of Media to Promote
  Saemaul Spirit
• Annual National Gathering of Saemaul Leaders
  (central/regional/local)
• - Presentation of best practice cases
• - Exchange of information
• Classification of Saemaul communities by levels
  of development/success
• Strong incentives offered to most distinguished
  communities

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Expansion of the Movement
Success of Saemaul in Rural Areas
CORPORATE SOCIETY
URBAN AREA
Development into a Nation-Wide Movement
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• New world through Saemaul Undong
• -Saemaul Undong started to change "the blood tied
  village" into "the territoriality based
  community",
• -Saemaul Undong also made all residents of a
  maul (village in English version) tied by the
  commonality.
• -The blood tied village in Korea was rarely
  empowered to introduce new method or logic
  to be free from poverty stuck on it.
• -New methodology and new logic had to be
  introduced to rebuild communities and to
  reduce rural poverty.
• -To change Korean traditional villages enervated
  by structural context into active ones, new
  spirits had to be evoked by showing the
  evidence that something could be done with
  small stimuli from the government

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• SU contributed to the miracle economic growth of
  Korea
• -By cultivating local governance system at
  village level this enabled Korean society to
  mobilize human resources to support sustainable
  economic growth.
• -By accumulating social capital at village
  level this helped Korean economic circle to
  reduce political cost in production process.
• -By getting rid of main obstacles to economic
  growth because severe economic disparity between
  urban and rural society might interrupt
  industrialization policy.

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• The characteristics of Saemaul Undong
• -Community development model,
• -Mixed practical theory to develop rural
  village at first stage, and later including urban
  society,
• -Comprehensive strategy to mix external aids
  and internal resources harmoniously into
  community development,
• -Bottom up approach mixed by top down stimuli
  from governmental side at the initial stage,
• -Methodology including programs or projects
  step by step,
• -Paradigm to fit any situation for the better
  one.

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• The ideology of Saemaul Undong
• -diligence spirit can change the situation
  into better one, thereby reinforcing
  self-sufficiency, hereafter living standard being
  increased.
• -self-help spirit can build a community
  standard, thereby reinforcing social integration,
  hereafter the commonality at village level being
  realized.
• -cooperation spirit can mobilize and use
  exogenous resources as well as endogenous
  potentialities, thereby reinforcing networking,
  hereafter quality of life being raised.

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• The mechanism of Saemaul Undong Practice
• (win-win strategy)
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• -Evoking diligence, self-help and
  cooperation spirits from village people.
• -Providing a tiny seed (cement, iron bar,
  etc.).
• -Guaranteeing more incentives for the
  better accomplished.
• -Making the sustainable environment for
  Saemaul Undong.

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• Governance Dimensions
• Exercising power in community development
  projects began to be shared by all the
  stakeholders
• Decision making process in SU was conducted by
  bottom up approach.
• Villagers produced information affecting their
  lives by themselves, for themselves.
• Villagers began to participate in producing
  public goods to raise the level of their village.
• At village level, SUC was composed of various
  user groups. SUC were run by decentralized form.
  
• Goal of implementing organization Practicing
  grass root democracy by empowering all the
  villagers to elect their leaders directly

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• Saemaul Undong also contributed so much to
  exercising local governance
• - by sharing the power with all the stakeholders,
  
• - by making decision at village level through
  bottom up approach,
• -by making village people to produce necessary
  information at village level,
• -by combining external resources with village
  resources into better living conditions,
• -and by changing the role of village people from
  the consumer of public services to the
  co-producer of public interests.

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Factors of Success

• Strong Political Will Leadership
• Effective System of Competition / Incentives
• Participatory Decision-Making Processes
• Sense of Ownership and Independence

• Breaking away from the cycle of foreign aid
  dependency
• Long-term sustainable rural development

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Applicability
Saemaul in Africa

• Features of historical commonalities
• (colonial past, civil war, need for
  effective poverty reduction)
• Need of alternative development mechanism
• Success of pilot projects in Democratic Republic
  of Congo

Viable Alternative Approach to Rural Development
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UNPOG-UNECA Initiative on Saemaul
UndongBackground
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UNPOG-UNECA Initiative Overall Goal

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• Sustainable Modernisation of Agriculture occurs
  when a substantial number of rural households

• Have incomes exceeding the poverty level

• Operate farms commercially

• Specialise in production at farm level

• Invest more heavily on the farm

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• Purchase commercial inputs

• Hire labour in significant quantities

• Adopt new technologies on regular basis

• Continue to produce food cheaply

• release labour to the non agricultural economy.

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• Rural Transformation implies

meeting basic human needs of enough food, clean
water, shelter,
clean environment, basic health, basic education,
gender equality
generation of agricultural surpluses for trade
or sale
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diversified on-farm enterprises with improved
labour productivity and income
freeing up of labour for off-farm employment
accumulation of capital and its investing in
other ventures.
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• One definition of governance as
  working definition

The process and pattern of
distribution of power among potential
and actual actors in a specific community or
society as defined and articulated in each
situation or activity
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• Then in rural development

• it denotes the pattern of power distribution and
  the amount of influence exerted by each
  actor in rural communities in the course
  of decision making and activities related to
  rural development.

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UNPOG-UNECA Initiative Specific Objectives and
Related Activities
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UNPOG-UNECA Initiative Specific Objectives and
Related Activities
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UNPOG-UNECA Initiative Specific Objectives and
Related Activities
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UNPOG-UNECA Initiative Expected Results
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Cooperative Framework
Governments
Pilot communities
Partner organizations
UNECA
UNPOG
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• Thank you