Achieving sustainability at the individual and community levels through development assistance

ABSTRACT

This study uses a Saemaul Undong overseas development assistance (ODA) project in Rwanda as a case study to develop a new theory regarding aid recipients achieving sustainability. Although sustainability has emerged as a major concern in the international development community, there is still limited research on the sustainability of development interventions and means of practically achieving sustainability. This study fills this gap in the literature by exploring the process of achieving sustainability and assessing the dynamics among the factors that contribute to this process. Our findings reveal that sustainability is an accumulative continuum from the individual level to the community level, with different interventions and governance structures required to advance from one level to another. This study offers practical lessons for donor governments and agencies regarding the types of interventions that they should provide and the roles that they should play depending on the relevant level of sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid dependency
• multi-level sustainability
• sustainability
• Saemaul Undong ODA
• governance

Acknowledgments

We thank the interviewees for sharing their stories with us and Dr. Tonghee Park for his feedback on and assistance with the analysis, which greatly improved the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There are three prevailing interpretations of social sustainability in relation to two other pillars: environmental sustainability and economic sustainability (Chiu, 2003, Vallance et al., 2011). One interpretation equates social sustainability with environmental sustainability. The second interpretation considers social sustainability to be a social precondition for environmental sustainability. The third interpretation – a people-centered approach – is related to improving equity and social justice for this and future generations.

2. The following impacts of Saemaul Undong have been reported: 1) an increase in rural household income from KRW 360,000 in 1971 to KRW 2,230,000 in 1979; 2) improvements in social infrastructure, including upgraded village paths and housing, the construction of community facilities, and electrification; 3) the accumulation of social capital and the empowerment of communities; and 4) the growth of civil society through villagers’ participation (Asian Development Bank, 2012).

3. Glaser’s (2005) pure inductive approach has been criticized for delaying the literature review until the end of the data-analysis process, preventing the researcher from having prior knowledge and perceptions. This is important, as GT researchers can achieve the following benefits by conducting an early and ongoing literature review (Dunne, 2011; Thornberg, 2012; Thornberg & Dunne, 2019): 1) a defensible rationale for the selection of a research subject, 2) avoidance of conceptual and methodological pitfalls, and 3) theoretical sensitivity, which helps to develop sensitizing concepts and contextualize the study in the literature.

4. Observations and in-depth interviews are important methods of data collection for GT (Strauss, 1987). The majority of the interviewees are both participants in and observers of the changes driving sustainability. Interviewing participant observers could increase the validity of the research because 1) they can directly learn about events and people’s behaviors in natural settings (Dewalt & DeWalt, 2002, Lecompte, 2000, Marshall & Rossman, 1989), and 2) they can perceive non-verbal expressions of feelings through close communication with informants who may be unwilling to vocalize those feelings (Schmuck, 1997).

5. Rwanda has been dependent on foreign aid since 1980, with aid being the country’s main source of capital flow, investment finance, and national budgetary funds (Ezemenari et al., 2008).

6. Baseline and endline surveys show that 1) the incomes of the villages of Kigarama, Mushimba, and Gihogwe increased by factors of 2, 16, and 18, respectively; 2) income from various sources other than casual farm labor also increased; 3) the amount of money saved at formal institutions, such as local banks, increased by factors from 2 to 12: 4) the percentage of people with medical insurance increased from less than 85% to more than 95% in all three villages; and 5) the percentage of people who graduated from primary school increased from 19% to 34% (Saemaul Foundation, 2017). The shift in people’s general mind-set toward self-reliance is also supported by Joo (2015).

7. From 2013 to 2018, rice field acreage increased from 5.5 ha to 126 ha, and the number of members in the rice cooperatives increased from 114 to 2,321 (Saemaul Foundation, 2018).

8. After Gyeongsangbuk-do selected pilot countries and villages, the Saemaul Foundation and KOICA finalized the selections through dialogue with national governments and field investigations. Eight selection criteria were applied in this process, including criteria to identify countries with strong demand for poverty reduction, safety, and political stability as well as a commitment by the government (Lim et al., 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jisun Kim

Jisun Kim has a master’s degree in public administration at Ewha University. She was involved in the rural development project in Rwanda funded by Korea International Cooperation Agency and is currently working as a Climate Change Programme Assistant at UN-Habitat. Her research interests include community development, sustainable development, and Monitoring and Evaluation.

Yoon Ah Shin

Yoon Ah Shin is a post-doc fellow of ASU-NCEC Sloan fellowship at Global Futures Laboratory in Arizona State University. Her research interests include sustainable development, low carbon governance, emergency management policy, and international development. She is the associate editor of Natural Hazards Review. She has published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, International Review of Public Administration, Policy Sciences, and Ecology and Society.