SEOUL, Feb. 7 (Yonhap) -- The international aid panel of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Wednesday urged South Korea to come up with concrete plans to increase its official development assistance (ODA) spending.
The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released its peer review of the country in a session at the foreign ministry in Seoul.
"Korea will have even greater impact (on global aid) if it can produce a clear plan to increase aid volumes in line with its stated ambitions," the report said.
The DAC groups 30 major donor countries inside the OECD. South Korea joined the committee in 2010.
South Korea has slashed its 2020 target for ODA to 0.2 percent of its gross national income (GNI) from 0.25 percent, citing a slowing economy. It aims to hike the ratio to 0.3 percent by 2030.
"But it has not set out a roadmap for achieving this," the peer review pointed out. "By comparison, the average ratio of ODA to GNI for DAC donors was 0.32 percent in 2016, and six DAC members have now reached a United Nations target of 0.7 percent."
"If Korea's economy continues to grow at current levels, it would need to provide net ODA of US$3.2 billion in 2010 to meet its 0.2 percent target, a jump of 40 percent from 2016 levels," the report underlined.
The report also said South Korea needs to expand its aid to programs run by non-Korean companies, adding that "in other areas, the Peer Review finds Korea fully implemented eight and partially implemented 13 out of 24 recommendations in its first Peer Review in 2010."
The session was attended by DAC Chair Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, other government officials and civilian experts.
Cho committed the government's efforts to strengthen partnerships with non-governmental ODA players and to increase input from the public to its ODA policy and programs.
The DAC chair praised South Korea for making headway in ODA in a short period of time and called for an expanded role in the international development and cooperation sector, according to the foreign ministry.
"The latest event is expected to raise the South Korean public's awareness of ODA and galvanize pan-governmental efforts to revamp and improve its DOA policies and spending," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The government plans to quickly follow up with action plans on the OECD recommendation and put them into action, the ministry also said.
(END)