OGATA Sadako

JICA President Mrs. Sadako Ogata and President Park Dae Won of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) have discussed future joint projects in Southeast Asia and the ongoing exchange of personnel between the two organizations.

Mrs. Ogata is on a four-day visit to Korea and China during which she met government, aid, development and academic officials and delivered a speech in shanghai Friday.

Thursday Mrs. Ogata and President Park Dae Won discussed the exchange of personnel and possible future cooperation on projects in Southeast Asia. They also agreed to hold annual consultative meetings between their respective organizations.

KOICA was established in 1991 with aims similar to those of JICA – providing technical assistance and financial aid to developing countries.

At a meeting Wednesday Mrs. Ogata held discussions with President Dong Soo Kim of Korea’s Export-Import Bank on a series of issues including the role of Official Development Assistance (ODA), joint financing of projects, a future tripartite meeting also involving the Export-Import Bank of China, a development forum for Asia and Korea’s increasing economic cooperation with Africa.

She held other meetings with former Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, government and academic officials and the Japanese ambassador to Korea.

Thursday she also visited the KOICA Global Village in Seoul, a center similar to JICA’s own Global Plaza in Tokyo, which provides information about the organization and promotes activities such as exhibitions to highlight development issues.

The two organizations have formed a close working relationship for a long time and have conducted several joint projects as part of a global movement toward closer working relationships between donors.
Korea increasingly is viewed as one of the world’s ‘emerging’ donors along with nations such as India and Brazil, joining more traditional donors such as Japan in helping some of the world’s poorer regions.
In Shanghai Friday she delivered a speech on to the Shanghai Institute for International Studies on Sino-Japanese relations and Asia in an era of globalization.