1. Director-General for Development Cooperation Jeong Jin-kyu of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will hold the eighth ROK-UK consultation on development cooperation policy with Director General for Policy and Global Programmes Nick Dyer of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in London, the United Kingdom, on April 28.

o The two countries have held the director-general-level consultation on development cooperation policy seven times from 2003 to 2014. In 2015, the two countries held a vice minister-level dialogue on development cooperation and agreed to strengthen the momentum for cooperation between the two countries.

2. In the first consultation on development cooperation policy since the Brexit vote, the two countries will discuss their policy priorities amid the changing environment for global development cooperation, as well as ways for the two countries to work together in a range of areas, including global healthcare cooperation, humanitarian aid, inclusive public-private partnerships, and strategies for multilateral ODA.

o The two countries will devise measures for post-Ebola cooperation in the global healthcare sector, building upon their experience of a successful partnership in responding to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014.

o They will exchange views on ways for the two countries to work together on key global issues, including humanitarian assistance to help solve the food crises in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

o The two sides will engage in in-depth discussions on ways to establish an inclusive and innovative partnership with the private sector, which has recently become one of the top issues in the area of development cooperation.

o They will also discuss ways to promote strategic cooperation with major development cooperation organizations, including the UNDP, the UNHCR, UNICEF, the WFP, and the WHO.

3. The UK, the world's third biggest aid donor (ODA in 2016: about $18 billion), has played a leading role in global development cooperation, including by establishing a legal institution to ensure that the country’s ODA/GNI ratio would not drop below 0.7 percent, and pledging to spend 50 percent of the DFID’s annual budget on fragile states.

4. The ROK has expanded its aid since its accession to the OECD DAC in 2010, and continued efforts to improve the quality of aid. Following the upcoming policy consultation with the UK, the ROK will review once again its policies for development cooperation and humanitarian aid, and ways to improve them.

o The Foreign Ministry is making active use of regular dialogues on development cooperation policy with major donors as part of development cooperation diplomacy, and has been operating channels for ODA policy consultation with more than 10 countries, including the US, the UK and Japan.


* unofficial translation