1. On the sidelines of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly, the Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Shin Dong-ik and Associate Administrator Rebeca Grynspan of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the body that oversees the UN’s development cooperation affairs, signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the Saemaul Undong (New Community Movement) Global Initiative at the UN Headquarters on September 26.

* Under the MOU, experts from the ROK and the UNDP, in a bid to establish Saemaul Undong as an exemplary rural development project model, will set Saemaul Undong as a model through a joint study, implement its pilot projects in 3-4 countries and share its implementation strategies and outcomes with the international community.

2. The MOU has been signed in response to the international community’s interest in rural development models for developing countries and to the request of many developing countries, especially those in Asia and Africa. The MOU is expected to help spread Saemaul Undong across the world through the UN body.

3. The “ROK-UNDP Saemaul Undong Global Initiative” is expected to present an appropriate solution to the issue of poverty reduction in agricultural areas of developing countries -- one of the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets that lag farthest behind in implementation. The Initiative, in response to the high demand of developing countries, will likely focus on setting a highly applicable and practical model of Saemaul Undong.

° The ROK-UNDP Initiative can be differentiated from past cases featuring a donor-country-oriented approach in sharing development experiences. The Initiative can be characterized as one where the ROK and the international organization jointly define and spread shared knowledge with a focus on needs of developing countries in order to help developing countries introduce appropriate development means tailored to their demand.

4. After signing the ROK-UNDP MOU, Deputy Minister Shin concluded the “ROK-UNDP MOU on Gender Equality” to implement follow-up measures to the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan 2011. In addition, he signed the “ROK Foreign Ministry-UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) MOU” and agreed to expand cooperation, including holding ROK-OCHA consultations on a regular basis. 


                   Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

*unofficial translation