Government: "77.8% of Citizens Support Official Development Assistance to Developing Countries"

As a result of a survey on public awareness of Official Development Assistance (ODA) conducted by the government, 77.8% of respondents answered that they support our government providing ODA to developing countries.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination's International Development Cooperation Headquarters announced on the 22nd that this result came from a survey on ODA awareness conducted last year targeting 1,200 adults and 500 adolescents.

The survey results showed that 83.8% of respondents thought supporting developing countries is important, and 77.8% answered that they support our government providing ODA to developing countries.

The proportion of respondents supporting our government's ODA to developing countries was 86.7% in 2017, then decreased to 81.3% in 2019 and 76.0% in 2021, before rebounding to 77.8%.

The reasons for supporting ODA were in order: ▲to help the economic and social development of developing countries (60.1%), ▲to contribute to realizing global values in the international community (38.7%), and ▲to help our country's international image and diplomacy (36.5%).

On the other hand, the reasons for opposing ODA were in order: ▲domestic issues are more urgent (63.9%), ▲we are not wealthy enough to provide aid (56.4%), and ▲it does not help solve poverty problems in developing countries (37.6%).

Regarding the size of the ODA budget, the largest opinion was to maintain the current budget size at 61.8%, with 19.4% supporting expansion and 18.8% supporting reduction.

This year’s ODA budget is 6.5 trillion won, an increase of 4.2% compared to the previous year.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination explained, "Based on this survey, our country plans to enhance the effectiveness of ODA projects while expanding international development cooperation as an advanced donor country, and strengthen efforts to raise awareness."

The survey and analysis were conducted by the Korea Institute of Public Administration and Hyundai Research, with the survey sample extracted proportionally by gender, age group, and regional population composition. The sampling error is ±2.53 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.

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