Paper short abstract:

This paper examines human security in South Korea's Official Development Assistance (ODA) in order to examine its readiness to cope with increasing natural disasters and other disasters in particular in the Asia Pacific.

Paper long abstract:

Human Security in Asia is a relatively new concept and practice in development cooperation. Research was conducted for South Korea, which is the newest member of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee from Asia. Empirical research on how "human security" is understood and practiced showed interesting findings that South Korea readily utilizes the spirit of human security in its development aid in particular in humanitarian assistance, post-war/conflict reconstruction projects, and in their assistance to fragile states. However, the South Korean government does not use the term, "human security" since there is some bias that this has been heavily promoted by the Japanese aid agencies, and thus did not want to adopt that term. As there are more incidence of natural disasters and their heavy consequences on the people and assets in Asia, there should be more cooperation among Asian neighbors, especially large donors.