The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) held an event on March 31 to celebrate the 14th anniversary of its founding on April 1, 1991, in the presence of every staff member of the agency.
President Kim Suk-hyun stated in his congratulatory address that the agency is undergoing dramatic changes that require a shift in the paradigm for project implementation and organizational management. His remarks came in the midst of the expansion of development projects and the growing interest in KOICA's activities. President Kim called upon the staff members to take active part in the agency's ongoing reform efforts such as the new, multi-faceted staff evaluation, internal nomination, capacity-building training programs, etc.
An award ceremony was also held as part of the commemoration. Those honored are: Choi Won-sik of the Overseas Volunteer Planning Team, Na Hyun of the Cooperation Policy Office, Kim Mi-yun of the Health Infrastructure Team, and Jo Ok-hi of the NGO Team. Yoon Se-jong, a KOV returnee from Ethiopia, Kim Woo-jae from Morocco, Choi Jae-sung from Myanmar, Chun Sang-ho, a Taekwondo master who served in Syria, and others were also awarded honors and prizes.
 

A groundbreaking ceremony of the Korea IT Center was held on March 31 at Kabul Polytechnic Institute School, attended by nearly 150 guests including Kim Joong-keun, KOICA Senior Executive Director of Foreign Disaster Relief and Reconstruction, and Suraya Paikan, the Afghan Minister of Information and Communication. The construction of the IT Center is part of the Korean government's  reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
In his congratulatory remarks, Executive Director Kim highlighted the importance of the IT industry and the necessity of narrowing the so-called "digital divide."  He added that the Korean government was concentrating a large part of its development aid on building IT infrastructure and capabilities in partner countries, including Afghanistan. Minister Suraya expressed appreciation to the Korean government for the development projects being carried out in Afghanistan. He also said that he expected the IT Center to play a pivotal role in expanding IT infrastructure and training in the country in coming years.
The Korean government is providing US$ 2 million to equip the IT Center with new buildings and advanced technologies including the satellite internet. The Center is scheduled to open in October this year.

Kim Yung-hee of Joongang Daily and Kim Yoo-bae, a professor of Economics at Sungkyunkwan University, visited KOICA's  project sites in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and China on an eight-day tour from March 1 to 8. The event was held as part of KOICA's efforts to inform its consultants and Korea's opinion leaders of KOICA's work in partner countries. The group visited three major project sites including Korea-Uzbekistan IT Training Center and Korea-Kazakhstan Friendship Hospital. During the visit, the consultants interviewed volunteers working at the project sites.
They also visited Uzbekistan's Samarkand School of Foreign Studies - which opened Korean classes taught by volunteers and NGOs from Korea?and the School of World Economics and Diplomacy, to have a closer look at KOICA's efforts to promote the Korean language in Uzbekistan.   
After observing the activities of KOICA volunteers in the three countries, Kim Yung-hee, a consultant, applauded the KOICA volunteers for playing an important role in boosting Korea's international status. He stressed the importance of choosing right recipient countries to ensure effective use of Korea's development aid.  Kim Yoo-bae said that through this visit, he gained a better understanding of the strategic importance of Central Asia and KOICA's role in the region. He added that though it was understandable for KOICA to focus on the language education, it was as important to diversify its work areas.

KOICA's Training Program Department has recently analyzed the results of training programs conducted between 1991 and 2004 and came up with measures for improvement. This is part of the agency's effort to develop result-oriented programs for partner countries and to provide a roadmap for future training programs.
The Training Program Department said it would continue to focus on priority partners in Asia and Oceania, and double its effort to help least developed countries as Korea promised to the international community. In the coming years, Department officials said, areas of training would be as diverse as public administration, agriculture, rural development, information technology, trade, etc. They also expressed a strong commitment to work with the global community to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global development targets in a range of areas such as education, health, gender equality, and the environment.    
To enhance the long-term effectiveness of its training programs, the department will move away from short-term training programs to training programs focused on problem-solving through demand survey by country and by region. It will also design diverse formats of training programs such as onsite training programs, co-training programs in third countries, and training via satellite television, and strengthen cooperation with other departments. In 2005, the first year for this long-term strategy, the Training Program Department will concentrate on improving the evaluation and planning capabilities, the officials said.

An opening ceremony of the Korea-Philippines Vocational Training Center was held on March 8 in the presence of dignitaries from both Countries, including KOICA Executive Director Lee Hyun-ju, Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Yoo Myung-hwan, and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
After the ribbon cutting and the unveiling of the commemorative plaque, the participants including President Arroyo took a closer look at the Center's facilities and equipment provided by KOICA and attended a simulation class. The president showed a keen interest in the high-tech equipment and the simulation class and expressed gratitude to KOICA for its assistance.
The Center, composed of seven buildings spanning an area of 8,193m2, has seven departments including welding and plumbing, automobile maintenance, and agricultural equipment maintenance. At these new facilities, 420 students will be trained each year to learn the technologies and expertise of Korea. Those skillful workforces are expected to make meaningful contributions to economic and industrial development of the Mandanao region. The opening ceremony also served as an opportunity to cement the friendship and cooperation between Korea and the Philippines.
 

The Korea International Cooperation Agency hired 14 new employees in March and conducted training for new recruits for two weeks between April 4 and 15.
The training is designed to help newly hired staff members gain basic knowledge of development aid and work ethics. On-the-job training was also carried out during the training period.
The new employees were assigned to their posts on April 18. After working as interns for a certain period, they will be promoted to be regular staff.
 

 The Korea International Cooperation Agency plans to enlist 720 overseas volunteers in 2005. Currently, the agency is in the process of selecting 217 volunteers. By the April 7 deadline, 725 applications in 57 work areas had been submitted. Those who passed the first screening had interviews on April 17. The agency will test the physical ability of those who pass the interviews and run background checks on them.  
The volunteers will be sent to 8 countries including Nepal, Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka and work in 63 fields including computer education, horticulture, harvesting, and nursing. Those selected will receive training for three weeks in Korea. Then, they will be sent to their posts overseas, and will serve in their respective regions for one or two years.  
The Overseas Volunteers Team conducted presentations on college campuses in Busan, Daejun, and Junjoo for two days. The presentations drew a lot of attention, indicating a growing interest in overseas volunteer services among the college students.

In order to solidify its position as the organization that provides assistance to developing nations and to improve its level of service to the people, the Korea International Cooperation Agency is reorganizing its website (www.koica.go.kr). The agency will improve the level of service by developing a text-based homepage in order to enhance accessibility, broaden channels of communication with the public, and promote its activities on the Internet more effectively, so that even those who live in areas without telecommunications equipment may access the website easily.
The new website will be featuring new corners designed to encourage the people's participation, and will devote more space to contents related to development programs in order to help the citizens better understand development programs. The user will be able to bookmark this user-friendly website as their favorite. The new site will also support mailing services by introducing a membership system.
Also, the English site will have such features as information on the agency's programs, project plans, achievements, and evaluations, so that two-way communications could be possible.      
The website is scheduled to open in late April.

An opening ceremony of the Korea-Indonesia Friendship Sports Exchange Center was held at Jakarta, Indonesia, on March 13, attended by KOICA President Kim Suk-hyun, Indonesian Minister of Youth Sports Adhyaksa Dault and other high-level officials from both countries.
To promote the friendship and cooperation between Korea and Indonesia, KOICA has provided about US$2.8 million for this sports center which can accommodate 3,000 spectators at once. The opening ceremony came a year after the launch of the project.
The ceremony was also participated by Foreign Minister Wirayuda, Education Minister Sudibyo, Culture and Tourism Minister Wacik from the Indonesian side, and Korean Ambassador to Indonesia Yoon Hae-joong, and Head of KOICA Indonesia Office Han Choong-sik from the Korean side. The total area of the sports center is about 484m2, big enough to hold international-level Taekwondo tournaments. The sports center also has badminton, basketball, volleyball courts and other facilities for indoor sports.  
The sports center's Taekwondo arena is expected to facilitate Indonesia's Taekwondo development.
It will also contribute to further strengthening the friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

The Korea International Cooperation Agency has reorganized its structure into a sector-based organization and established a permanent unit for foreign disaster response and emergency relief.  
On February 24, KOICA changed the names of existing offices and rearranged their functions by sector to implement its development project more efficiently and to respond to changes in the global development community.
☞KOREA INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AGENCY (KOICA)