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Korea's Rural Development Strategy
Author Park, Sihyun
Views 89722 Publication Date 2020.08.31
Original
Korea tackled rural problems generally faced by developing countries in the 1960s, and now targets advancing rural development further. The international community assesses the nation’s experience in agricultural development as a success. The world’s poorest and developing countries benchmark Korea for rural development planning. Suppose a developing country tries to apply Korea’s experience to its rural development. In that case, it is essential to understand similarities and differences between the two countries in terms of conditions for rural development policy. Also, it is necessary to understand the changes in Korea’s rural development strategies.

This study introduces the essence of Korea’s experience in agricultural development: the application of the United Nation’s community development program, the Saemaeul Movement—the national drive considered internationally to be a successful rural development model, the comprehensive rural area development program through bottom-up approaches, the build-a-village program led by residents’ participation, rural tourism for farmers’ entrepreneurial activities, and the 6th industrialization policy. The details are as follows:

First of all, this study explores Korea’s conditions for rural development policy through by categorizing urban and rural communities, characteristics and changes of Korean farming areas, and the implementation system of rural development. In the 1950s, the Korean government implemented the community development program helped by foreign aids. Although the nation went through many trials and errors, it nurtured agricultural agents and use them for future development.

In the 1970s, the Saemaeul Movement contributed to the modernization of rural communities by upgrading rural living conditions and production bases in a short period of ten years. Although there is some negative view of the movement, it enhanced rural people’s capabilities to develop and eradicate poverty. As a result, the national drive is positively viewed as a successful case of rural development for developing countries.

As the Saemaeul Movement was a government-led development program that resulted in unbalanced growth, Korea needed a new rural development plan in the mid-1980s. So the government set up a pilot program—dubbed as the comprehensive rural area development program—for inclusive growth. The program was based on a novel idea of the settlement zone composed of an urban center and surrounding rural areas. For its implementation, local governments requested subsidies to the central government. Although it ended up as a pilot project, it brought about changes in rural development by applying a territorial approach and enhancing local governments’s power.

Besides, myeon (townships) carried out development projects to upgrade their living conditions. They were small in scale but brought about remarkable changes in the rural setting. The central government sponsored those projects initiated by local governments.

The build-a-village program, devised in the 2000s, aimed to improve the rural environment, expand income sources, and carry out software-related projects. The program applied a bottom-up approach, in which village dwellers set up plans and selected target areas through competition.

To identify growth elements within rural areas and use them to promote local economies, the government implemented policies for rural tourism and the 6th industrialization of farming in the 2010s. The rural tourism policy was to create tourism villages in the rural setting. The endeavor to commercialize rural characteristics expanded to the 6th industrialization, including agricultural goods processing and sales.

Developing countries that intend to learn from Korea’s experience should look into similar or different aspects between their and Korea’s initial conditions for development. This research intends to help their endeavor to draw lessons from Korea. For that purpose, it categorizes Korea’s experience in terms of the public sector’s nature, residents’ participation, infrastructure upgrading, and urban-rural connectivity. Developing countries will face many restrictions to execute their projects based on Korea’s experience. So before taking into action, they should thoroughly look into situations they have, to find what they can learn from Korea’s experience. By doing so, they will indeed implement their projects without failure.

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