The Katolic Shinja has an interesting report that during Bush’s G8 speech he mentioned Korea as an example for Africa:
I just caught a bit of President Bush’s G8 speech. Lauding trade, not aid, as the solution to Africa’s woes, he noted that just 30 years ago, South Korea was as poor as many Sub-Saharan African nations, but that after pursuing an export-driven economy, South Korea is now as rich as many European countries.
To an extent poorer countries can model themselves after Korea, but Korea did have a few advantages to help their economy become what it is today. First and foremost is that Korea has a homogeneous society that does not have the tribal/ethnic/religous turmoil you see in many poor African countries. Korea does have some internal rivalries such as between Gyeongsam and Cholla provinces but nothing that would even come close to the open warfare that is prevalent in many African countries.
Another advantage Korea had was that US troops stationed in Korea provided a nice economic boost initially by providing jobs and a market for Korean goods. Plus the US troops provided a security guarantee to international investors looking at investing in Korea and taking advantage of its cheap labor. Do you think that anyone would have invested in Korea initially if US troops were not stationed here? If US troops were stationed in an African country I bet international investors would be more willing to invest in that African country knowing that the US military is providing a security guarantee of their investment. Do you think anyone would be willing to invest currently in Iraq if US troops were to pull out tomorrow?
Also Korea was given open access to the US market for their exports and received many contracts from the US government during the Vietnam War that really jumped started the Korean Economy in the late 60’s. Would African countries be given the same access to the US market to sell their goods? Plus Korea has two other huge exports markets right next door, Japan and China to sell their goods to.
It was in America’s interest to have Korea succeed during the Cold War. So Korea was given preferential treatment by the US. This added with Korea’s homogeneous society, cheap labor, a extremely hard working work ethic, plus leadership, despite his faults, from then dictator Park Chung Hee set the conditions that allowed Korea to become the nation they are today.
African countries will find it extremely difficult to match Korea’s success by trying to use the same formula Korea used to build their economy. Lessons can definitely be learned from Korea’s economic success but it is not the 100% solution to solving poverty in Africa.
I think ending the AIDS epidemic should be of the up most priority in Africa before economic development. No country will ever have a strong economy if their youth are dieing off and leaving the next generation as orphans. Would Korea have ever created their economic development if 15% of their population was dieing from AIDS 50 years ago? That along with internal tribal/religious/ethnic turmoil are the problems that many African countries are facing.
