KOICA Son Hyuksang New Director "Deepening COVID-19 Response Health Care and Climate Change Projects"

KOICA 1-Day New Chairman Inauguration Ceremony
Presentation of Six Management Strategies Including Digital Transformation and Integrated Development Cooperation Projects

KOICA Chairman Son Hyuk-sang.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Son Hyuk-sang, Vice President for External Affairs at Kyung Hee University, has been inaugurated as the 13th President of KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency). KOICA held the inauguration ceremony for its new President Son Hyuk-sang on the morning of the 1st at its headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

President Son has been recognized as a ‘development cooperation expert’ who integrates theory and practice based on over 20 years of experience in the international development cooperation field, working as a professor, scholar, and member of government agencies, academic societies, international organizations, and civil society. He has served as Vice President for External Affairs, Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration, and Director of the International Development Cooperation Research Center at Kyung Hee University.

In his inaugural speech, President Son expressed his ambition to “lead KOICA’s resurgence as a leading global development cooperation institution through continuous innovation” and presented six management strategies. These six strategies are: △ inheriting and developing existing KOICA innovation tasks △ enhancing KOICA’s expertise in development cooperation △ creating an organizational culture that motivates employees △ deepening health care and climate change projects in response to COVID-19 △ digital transformation △ and promoting development cooperation projects with an integrated approach.

President Son stated, “While continuing the strategies and plans KOICA has developed through long-term management goals and innovation plans, we will raise KOICA’s expertise throughout the entire process of discovering, managing, and evaluating development cooperation projects, and motivate employees to become top experts in development cooperation.”

He added, “KOICA should continuously produce results in traditionally emphasized fields such as education, rural development, and public administration, while aggressively expanding in health and global environmental sectors. We will deepen health care and climate change projects as part of an integrated approach to COVID-19 response.”

Furthermore, he said, “We must link and generate outcomes by connecting major government policies such as the Green New Deal and Digital New Deal mentioned in this year’s Korean New Deal, the New Southern and New Northern policies emphasized since the government’s launch, and recently proposed carbon neutrality and carbon net-zero policies with development cooperation.”

Regarding project implementation, he emphasized, “We must complete digital transformation in all areas including organizational culture, development cooperation project content, and operational methods, and realize programmatic and strategic thinking in projects through an ‘integrated approach.’ Especially, lowering barriers between regions, departments, and sectors and fostering organic and integrated collaboration are essential for the success of programmatic projects.”

President Son graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Political Science in 1985, completed his master’s and doctoral coursework in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, and earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Kyung Hee University. Since joining Kyung Hee University as a professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration in 2008, he has served as Dean of the Graduate School, Director of the International Development Cooperation Research Center, and Vice President for External Affairs until recently.

He has also recently served as a civilian member of the International Development Cooperation Committee of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, policy advisory member of KOICA and the UN Governance Center, policy expert member of the UN Human Rights Policy Center, and member of the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. He has authored numerous research papers, books, and policy research reports in the field of international development cooperation.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.