Comparing South Korea and Germany’s official development assistance projects in climate protection in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam

• Pages: 613-631
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-06-2015-0077
• Date: 21 November 2016
• Published date: 21 November 2016
• Author: Donata Bessey,Michelle Palumbarit
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Environmental issues,Climate change

Comparing South Korea and

Germany’s ofcial development

assistance projects in climate

protection in Cambodia, Lao PDR,

Myanmar and Vietnam

Donata Bessey

EastAsia International College, Yonsei University, Wonju,

Republic of Korea, and

Michelle Palumbarit

Department of Political Science, Yonsei University, Seoul,

Republic of Korea

Abstract

Purpose – This explorative study aims to compare and analyze the behavior of a traditional and an

emerging donor, namely, Germany and South Korea, in the eld of climate change-related ofcial

development assistance (ODA). It analyzes their ODA projects in 2013 in four Southeast Asian countries

severely affected by climate change, namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. It also adapts the

existing framework to categorize ODA allocation according to receiving countries’ need and merit and

donors’ self-interest.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper rst describes both countries’ policies and activities. It

then uses a country’s vulnerability to climate change as a measure of its need, its climate change

readiness as a measure of its merit and its bilateral trade volume in environmental goods with donor

countries as a measure of donors’ self-interest to analyze the allocation of climate-related ODA.

Findings – Results suggest that Korean ODA in the eld of climate protection is driven more by

receiving countries’ need and merit, but self-interest seems to be important for both donors. In addition,

many projects labeled as adaptation or mitigation projects only have a weak link to these goals. There

are limitations to the present paper. First, it could only analyze projects in 2013 because there are no

earlier project data available in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Creditor

Reporting System. Second, because of the simplifying assumptions of the need–merit–self-interest

framework, possible other determinants of aid allocation were deliberately ignored. Finally, this

explorative study is restricted to four vulnerable countries in Southeast Asia.

Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the rst paper to compare a

traditional and an emerging donor’s behavior and to explore the allocation of climate-related ODA using

the need–merit–self-interest framework.

Keywords Germany, Climate change, South Korea, Southeast Asia, ODA allocation

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Climate change and its consequences are probably among the most urgent problems the

international community has to face in the twenty-rst century. While industrialized

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

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Ofcial

development

assistance

projects

613

Received 17 June 2015

Revised 31 October 2015

26 November 2015

Accepted 26 November 2015

InternationalJournal of Climate

ChangeStrategies and

Management

Vol.8 No. 5, 2016

pp.613-631

©Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1756-8692

DOI 10.1108/IJCCSM-06-2015-0077

countries are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that cause

global warming, many low-income countries and least-developed countries (LDCs) are

or will be affected disproportionately by the consequences of global warming (IPCC,

2014;Millner and Dietz, 2015). Climate change can further aggravate the “existing

vulnerabilities of developing countries and threaten the achievement of the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs)” (Ayers and Huq, 2009). Therefore, projects on climate

change, including both adaptation and mitigation, are an important part of ofcial

development assistance (ODA), with possibly growing future importance.

Since the late 1980s, climate policy has become a topic on the political agenda, and the

UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro 1992 discussed

both environmental and development policy while emphasizing the importance of

international climate policy. The conference also marked the start of donor countries’

use of development funds for climate policy projects (OECD/DAC, 2002), which was

further encouraged by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism. This

mechanism allows industrialized countries to acquire certied emission reductions by

carrying out projects aimed at reducing GHG emissions in developing countries,

providing incentives for donor countries to redirect aid resources into climate protection

(Michaelowa and Michaelowa, 2007). Responding to these incentives, donors have

started to nance climate-related ODA projects, including both adaptation and

mitigation projects.

This article aims to carry out a comparative policy analysis for Germany’s and South

Korea’s climate-related ODA projects from the Organization for Economic Cooperation

and Development (OECD)’s DAC External Development Finance Statistics project

database for the year 2013, the only year for which comparable project data are readily

available, in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, four highly vulnerable Southeast

Asian countries. A comparison between a “traditional” Western and an “emerging”

Asian donor’s behavior in climate change-related ODA might provide interesting

insights and has, to the best of our knowledge, never been carried out in the previous

literature in the eld. While Korea is a relatively new actor in the eld of ODA and has

been providing aid since 1991, Germany has been active since 1961, when the German

Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesministerium für

wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, BMZ) was founded. Similarly,

Germany has provided aid in the eld of climate protection since 1993, while Korea only

started to do so after 2000.

The article’s rst objective is to determine whether Germany and Korea provide aid

based on the recipients’ need and merit or on their own self-interest, following and

adapting the corresponding development economic literature on overall ODA allocation

(Alesina and Dollar, 2000;White and McGillivray, 1995;Berthelemy, 2006;Dollar and

Levin, 2006;Sawada et al., 2008;Hoefer and Outram, 2011). This literature on ODA

allocation has only analyzed overall ODA of donor countries. However, we focus

exclusively on climate-related aid and provide an exploratory analysis of its

determinants, specically, whether climate-related ODA in those four countries is

allocated according to need, merit or donors’ self-interest. To measure need, we propose

to use Kreft et al.’s (2015) Global Climate Risk Index; to measure merit, we use Notre

Dame University’s “Global Adaptation Index” readiness sub-index’; and to measure

donors’ self-interest, we use bilateral trade volumes in environmental goods. To the best

of our knowledge, this analysis is the rst for donors’ motivations to provide

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