EVOLUTION OF KOREA’S ODA POLICY Eun Mie Lim Graduate School of International Studies Ewha Womans University 120750, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, South Korea Since joining the DAC in 2010, Korea has made a great deal of effort to enhance its role in international development cooperation. <...> This paper reviews the evolution of Korea’s ODA policy by discussing how the Korea’s development experience as a recipient and its accession to the DAC have inextricably shaped the ODA policy and strategies. <...> It shows that the different interest and motivation of the Ministry of Strategies and Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been strongly reflected in Korea’s ODA policy. <...> The Korean government has committed to bridge developed and developing countries by proposing “the Korean ODA model”. <...> This paper argues that integration of DAC principles and norms into the Korean ODA model remains a challenge. <...> Introduction The USAID report on the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) in 1961 stated, “The country is a nightmare, an albatross, a rat hole, a bottomless pit. <...> Aid did nothing for economic development, or even worse, doused its people with a welfare mentality”. <...> Fifty years later, the country became the 24th member of OECD DAC (Development Assistant Committee), the world’s major donor club. <...> Moreover, the shift of Korea’s status from one of the most impoverished countries to an important aid donor is now seen as an exemplary case of success for developing countries [26]. <...> Having the knowledge and ideas drawn from its own development experience, Korea is regarded as a donor who has “an area of particular comparative advantage relative to other DAC members” [20. <...> In 2013 Korea’s ODA marked USD 1.74 billion ranking 16th among the 28 DAC member countries. <...> In response to the criticism the Korean government have pledged to increase the ratio to 0.25% by 2015. <...> The develop15 Вестник РУДН, серия Международные отношения, 2015, № 1 ment literature has given a lot of attention to the purposes of foreign aid with two contrasting approaches, namely realism and idealism. <...> ODA policies are, therefore, determined by donor’s political, diplomatic, economic and/or commercial interests <...>