《Global Issues for Public Administration ODA_3-2》
Humanitarian Assistance

Donghoon Kim (CEO)
Life-Line Korea

Large-scale disasters that require external assistance due to their degree surpassing the response capacity of individual nations have always occurred. The size of disasters has grown further in recent years, from regional disasters that cross national borders and affect neighboring countries, such as the Canadian forest fires in 2023, to the super-wide-area disaster including the COVID-19 outbreak that simultaneously affected nations across the globe. 
 The COVID-19 and the Russo-Ukrainian War proved that disasters may cause victims to fall into the vicious cycle of poverty due to economic damage at a global scale, as well as direct casualties and property losses from disasters. As such, we have come to witness the long-term effects of disasters that we cannot handle through temporary emergency relief after their outbreak.
 Their ever-complicating aspects brought an increasing call for changes to respond effectively to risks. With the national government taking a pivotal role, Korea is implementing projects in various areas to develop its national disaster safety management system; at the same time, it is improving assistance systems and project details, focusing on official development assistance (ODA) in humanitarian assistance to serve its role in the international community.  
 It can be said that Korea is joining the movement to bring changes in response to exacerbating disasters and risks. As a means of adding effective response measures, practical and specific methods should be discussed and implemented. In such a context, this paper briefly looks into the disaster risks commonly faced by the international society and the initiatives taken by the Korean government in ODA areas, and proposes research projects that will further advance the country’s disaster and risk response methodology through implications drawn from several on-site response cases which have been implemented so far.