Assessing the Effectiveness of South Korea’s Development Assistance in Vietnam

Abstract

South Korea’s development assistance has become an important resource in facilitating Vietnam’s socio-economic development and contributed to infrastructure establishment, agricultural and rural development, as well as hunger eradication and poverty reduction in Vietnam over the past 25 years. By adopting indicators proposed in the Busan Partnership Agreement and OECD’s DAC criteria, desk study and in-depth interviews, the paper assessed the effectiveness of South Korea’s development aid in Vietnam at three levels: nation, donor and project level. The results show that at both national and donor levels, South Korea’s ODA in Vietnam is successful and effective in terms of aligning objectives of both sides, facilitating engagement of private sectors, supporting a forward-looking vision, providing public and up-to-date information, and applying effective international methods to monitor and evaluate ODA projects. At project level, the QCGH project of KOICA has proved to be relatively successful especially in terms of relevance and impacts. The paper also pointed out shortcomings of South Korea’s development at national and donor levels with a focus on disbursement of development aid, the use of Vietnam’s financial system, strictly binding conditions and limited inclusive cooperation between South Korea and Vietnam in assessing the effectiveness of South Korea’s development aid. At project level, the shortcomings lied mainly under efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability indicators. Based on evaluation of South Korean’s aid performance and effectiveness in Vietnam, the paper drew out some implications to strengthen South Korea’s development aid effectiveness in Vietnam in the future.