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| Volunteers of the Korea International Cooperation Agency and local residents work together to dig a well in Kampong Cham province, Cambodia. Photo supplied. |
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), last week, has been organizing a workshop at the Cambodia-Korea Cooperation Center (CKCC) to evaluate the outcome of a project based on a Korean model, the so-called “New Village Movement” that has been implemented in Cambodia since 2015.
According to KOICA’s Facebook page, the workshop was organized with the initiative of four Korean volunteers coming from South Korea, with the presence of Minister of Rural Development, South Korea’s Ambassador to Cambodia Kim Weon Jin, and officials from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC).
During the workshop, the four volunteers have been talking about their next plan and about the projects of the best villages in Tbong Khmom, Takeo, and Kampong Speu province where the “New Village Movement” project has been implemented.
Moreover, the best villagers have been awarded for their outstanding achievement in term of implementing the “New Village Movement” project.
“The reward for outstanding villagers is to boost the management as well as the implementation of the New Village Movement project; and to influence other villagers to participate in the project,” stated KOICA in a post on its Facebook page.
According to a press release issued by KOICA, so far, the implementation of the project gave birth to new physical infrastructure such as community kindergartens, irrigation systems, rural roads, drinking water systems, hand pumps … And non-physical infrastructure such as micro credit, rice seed/fertilizer, pig and cow bank. In addition, the number of toilet is also on the rise.
According to KOICA’s website, the objectives of this project are “(1) promote a community-based integrated rural development model following the great success of Saemaul Undong (SMU) in terms of the villagers’ voluntarily participation and collective decision, and thus provide an essential outlet for the sustainability of rural communities in Cambodia;
(2) Mainstream capacity development at all levels, from the central government to village committees, by spreading SMU’s three guiding principles of diligence, self-help and cooperation;
(3) Strengthen the basis for the SMU model to spread it throughout the nation by ensuring the success of 30 pilot projects in terms of incomes generation, environment improvement and community empowerment.”
The project is being implemented for the period of five years (2014-2018). It is funding by the South Korean government who agreed to grant $8,000,000 for the project.
Saemaul Undong is the Korean development model that has helped South Korean people to develop their country in a very incredible fast pace. Originally, it aimed at developing agricultural sector. However, since the 1970s, the project aimed also at the development of economy, society, and culture.
Since four decades, the South Korean government is still using Saemaul Undong to develop their country. As it is a great success, South Korea now wants to spread this development paradigm throughout the world.
According to KOICA, in 2013, UNESCO granted Saemaul Undong as Document Heritage in the Memory of World Register. As for UNDP, the “ROK-UNDP Saemaul Undong Global Initiative” was created to help South Korean government to spread Saemaul Udong across the world.
In short, Saemaul Udong rather concentrates on “cooperative development” in order to empower the community in a view to “live well all together.”
KOICA has introduced Saemaul Udong in Cambodia because they think that it is a worthy development model to help 80 percent of Cambodians living in rural area to lift their life out of poverty by improving water management infrastructure, empowering farmers, creating jobs and developing local economy.
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