Ewha Womans UniversityInstitute for Development and Human Security

Institute for Development 

and Human Security (IDHS)

Eradicating poverty, achieving sustainable development and bringing peace to the world may be an elusive dream for many, but at the Institute for Development and Human Security (IDHS) we strive to contribute towards achieving this dream. Through extensive research of finding ways to share the experience of South Korea’s transition from being one of the poorest countries in the world faced with triple challenges of poverty to one with high economic development and democratization in the midst of fragile security, our team is continuously working to find tangible ways forward for poverty eradication and achievement of sustainable development. Our team’s research on development and human security has focused on documenting and analyzing cases of donors and development partners in particular from the Asian region, where there has been less attention from the studies of development cooperation. Our research institute examines South Korea as an emerging donor of ODA along with other emerging donors in a comparative analyses of best practices for effective ODA implementation focusing on global health, gender, human security, humanitarian assistance, and monitoring and evaluation. 

With the invaluable support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through two consecutive project grants, our multi-disciplinary research team at IDHS has taken a step closer to realizing our goals.  From 2013 to 2016, with the first grant entitled “Advocacy for Korean Engagement in Global Health and Development” our team, consisting of researchers from various fields such as development cooperation, medicine and women’s studies, worked on achieving three objectives: 1) promoting advocacy to increase South Korea’s interest in global public health sector in its development cooperation efforts; 2) building global collaboration to identify and promote opportunities to leverage the South Korea’s voice in shaping regional/global health and aid policies; and 3) finding South Korea’s niche area in global public health.  With the second and most recent grant, from November 2016 to October 2022, entitled “Korea Global Health Strategy,” our team will work to advocate to enhance South Korea’s development cooperation by engaging with key stakeholders across the government, multilateral agencies, civil society organizations, universities and the general public and building a strong community on the issue of global health and development with emphasis on girls’ health in developing countries. We also plan to contribute to international dialogue on global health not only through the comprehensive study of South Korea’s engagement with international development cooperation especially on global health, but also through education and sharing information via various conferences and workshops.

We hope to contribute to the world by sharing our vision to make the world a better place for all through evidence-based research, education and global outreach.