Korea’s Cooperation in Agriculture and Rural Development in Cambodia - Comparison with approaches of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Abstract

This article analyzes the strategy of Korea’s official development assistance (ODA) forCambodia’s agriculture and rural development sector, as performed by the Korea International Cooper-ation Agency (KOICA) to Cambodia’s agriculture and rural development sector. Defining KOICA’sstrategy proved difficult because of the small scale of grant aid and fewer numbers of agricultural andrural development projects. Thus, this article intends to evaluate KOICA’s strategy by comparing it withthe strategy of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an agency similar to KOICA in itsmakeup and professed goals. With comparison of JICA’s strategy, it has a useful meaning with startingpoint, which evaluates KOICA’s strategy in Cambodia. Based on the findings, the article recommendsthat KOICA consider increasing the amount of grant aid, the size and period of related projects; adapt-ing the two-track approach; extending specific activities in the fisheries industry; and applying a partici-patory rural development and multidisciplinary approach.