Rural development in South Korea

THAT South Korea changed from aid recipient to donor in a generation is a source of national pride. In 1961 its GDP per capita was $91, then on a par with Bangladesh. Ferocious industrial growth has long been credited with transforming it into one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Now its president, Park Geun-hye, wants to remind the world of her country’s rural triumphs, too. She is touting a home-grown approach to modernising the countryside as a model for poor countries to follow.

The rural development scheme, known as the  , or new village, movement, took off in South Korea during the country’s export-led boom in the 1970s. The UN has considered  worthy of a four-year project to assess its merits, which it launched this year. The government made plans to spend 26 billion won ($23m) in 2014 on promoting the model in African and Asian countries. Last year it set up the Saemaul Globalisation Foundation to oversee this effort. Its head, Lee Ji-ha, describes Latin America as the new frontier for  in 2015.-promotion abroad began before Ms Park took office last year. Since 2010 South Korea has set up about 25 pilot in six countries in Africa and Asia, including Rwanda and Uzbekistan, providing villages with technical training and grants. But now it is going big. This year it pledged $8m in aid to Cambodia for a local  training centre and 30 village projects; in Myanmar it is setting up 100. Last year students from countries from Nepal to Papua New Guinea began to receive masters degrees in  studies at the Park Chung-hee School of Policy and Saemaul, established in 2011 in Gyeongsangbukdo, the birthplace of the original movement. Ms Park has taken a keen interest in pushing this revival of a development model that is so closely linked with her father, a military strongman who ruled South Korea for almost two decades. The budget for its promotion has grown by over a third since she came to power.The origins of  are recounted in South Korea as near-fable. In 1971 Ms Park’s late father, Park Chung-hee, who was then president, gave nearly every one of South Korea’s villages 335 bags of cement. Some used it to build bridges and pave roads, others replaced thatched roofs with tiles. After a year those thought successful (about half) received more cement plus steel rods. In return villagers were required to pool half their savings into local banks. The aim was to gather funds for moneymaking projects such as farming ginseng, chillies or oysters. Profits from these were to be spent on better seed-varieties and machinery. Gambling and boozing were stamped out (women’s groups organised card-burning rituals).

For a dusty agrarian policy, saemaul is remarkably divisive. Park Jindo of Chungnam National University in Daejeon says its resurgence under Ms Park suggests a political motive. The movement helped to strengthen rural support for Park’s dictatorship, he argues. Recalling those co-operative heydays gives Ms Park the chance to burnish her father’s legacy.

The movement did help to boost rural living standards. But even its defenders say the model will have limited impact elsewhere. In 1976 South Korea spent almost one-tenth of its entire national budget on  programmes. State backing in South Korea for  has not been this lively since its birth. But the enthusiasm of foreign villagers for the model could wither without lashings of their own governments’ support.