Aiming at strategic and effective aid delivery, the Korean government has established and implemented its first Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for each of the 26 priority partner countries. As most of the first Country Partnership Strategies are set to expire by 2015, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive evaluation and draw lessons on the CPS framework and operations before formulating the next CPS. The current CPS system, however, lacks to some extent a tool for result-based management or an evaluation framework, which makes it difficult to fulfill comprehensive assessments of CPS for all 26 partner countries within the next one or two years. In order to assure the effectiveness of Korea’s aid delivery through CPS, it is necessary to examine the achievement of current CPS and identify areas for improvement.
Against this backdrop, this study is based on timely recommendations that seek to elicit policy implications to improve the CPS framework and ultimately to enhance aid effectiveness, by examining the CPS and its implementation status with Bolivia as a case example. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America with severe poverty gaps and inequalities in income distribution. Chapter 2 discusses the development environment and needs in Bolivia; and the prospects of and challenges facing the national development plan the Bolivian government has implemented. Chapter 3 presents case studies of major donors in Bolivia, analyzing their cooperation strategy documents and practices with particular focus on the purposes of CPS, as well as its usefulness and limitations. In Chapter 4, after a detailed review of the contents of Korea’s CPS for Bolivia and its implementation status, the study identifies the assessment criteria based on the implications drawn from earlier analyses, and examines whether the CPS fulfills the criteria, namely the purposes for which the Korean government establishes and operates the CPS. Chapter 5 discusses ways to improve aid effectiveness in Bolivia with emphasis on enhancing strategies for formulation of CPS and developing new modalities of ODA implementation.
The major donors analyzed in the study include five bilateral donors, i.e. Japan, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Canada, and four multilateral organizations, i.e. Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, UN agencies and EU. The analysis suggests that the core function of CPS is to confirm the legitimacy of development activities with CPS as an official cooperation framework mutually agreed by both donor and recipient government. To provide useful guidelines in policy consultation with the recipient government, CPS should stipulate clear goals and implementation strategy for each priority sector. Another important function of CPS is the coordination of roles and activities among various actors of the donor country; therefore, CPS is required to include all relevant domestic stakeholders in order to coordinate and monitor overall development activities in the recipient country.
Korea’s CPS for Bolivia lacks clear goals or concrete implementation strategies. Although the CPS specifies three priority sectors, namely transportation infrastructure, health and agriculture, it is not very clear on what ground the three sectors were selected as priority sectors or which indicators can be used to measure achievements. It includes EDCF and KOICA as main agencies for implementing the CPS but does not mention other ministries or agencies that are carrying out development projects in Bolivia, so it is difficult to expect coordination or overall monitoring of development activities being implemented by Korean actors. In addition, it is difficult to claim that the CPS for Bolivia gives full consideration to the unique characteristics of Bolivia, as its action plans or implementation strategies are virtually same with CPS for other countries. The CPS document itself has limitations in fulfilling the purposes of CPS which the Korean government claims to pursue through CPS, such as strengthening integrated strategy, coordinated implementation and strong result-based management system.
In practice, Korea is developing and implementing a number of projects according to the priority sectors specified in the CPS. Although the assessment of achievements would be limited until the ongoing projects that were initiated recently are completed in a few years, it should be appreciated that Korea has developed a close relationship not only with the Bolivian government but also with many other development agencies in such a short period since its establishment of a local office in 2010. In particular, Korea has been appointed as co-chair of the GruS (Group of Partners for the Development of Bolivia) starting in 2016, which shows the well-respected status of Korea in the field of development cooperation in Bolivia.
Based on the analyses of major donors’ and Korea’s CPS operation in Bolivia, the study draws the following implications for Korea’s current CPS system.
First, Korea’s CPS lacks a feedback mechanism which enables the results from the country strategy evaluation to be reflected in the next strategy. In order to improve aid effectiveness by implementing the CPS, it is required to that lessons be drawn through an evaluation and identify areas for modification in the strategy, which would provide the foundation for formulating the next CPS. For this, it is essential to specify measurable goals with verifiable indicators in each priority sector and concrete implementation strategies to realize the goals.
Second, implementation strategies in CPS should be devised with a full consideration of unique characteristics and risk factors of the recipient country, so that the stakeholders concerned can refer to the CPS as a useful guideline for their aid activities in the country. For example, an implementation strategy in the current CPS such as ‘to review the possibility of utilizing the Bolivian governmental system’ should be further elaborated to address what the Bolivian governmental system is like, how this system can be utilized in implementing a project, and so on. As for ‘promotion of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP)’, the strategy should be more concrete and practical, providing information on the PPP environment in Bolivia and the current status and prospects of Korean private sector’s involvement in the country.
Third, CPS should encompass all relevant ministries and other agencies, in addition to the two major agencies, EDCF and KOICA, to coordinate activities among different actors involved in development cooperation. Furthermore, it is desirable to clarify roles and responsibilities of each ministry or agency in implementation strategies. For instance, specification of implementation strategies and tasks at government-wide, headquarter or local office level should be made so that respective ministries/agencies can establish their own operation plans based on the implementation strategies in CPS and carry out the plan with a sense of responsibility. This will in turn enhance the overall effectiveness of CPS implementation while contributing to alleviation of the fragmentation problems.
Finally, the study suggests ways to improve the CPS formulation and management at government-wide, headquarter and local level. It especially proposes that the Prime Minister’s Office play a central role in devising enhanced ‘formulation guidelines for CPS’ as well as collecting, updating and monitoring operation plans which the relevant ministries/agencies establish in line with CPS. The study also emphasizes the importance of strengthening the foundations of development activities at the local level and capacity building of human resources in the local office by accumulating field-based knowledge and experiences.