Strategies to Raise Public Awareness on Development Cooperation

"From aid recipient to donor” is a slogan commonly used to promote Korea’s development cooperation. The slogan not only represents HOW Korea tries to contribute to the developing world with its unique development experience, but it also shows WHY Korea thinks they should. This report quantitiatively evaluates the efficacy of public awareness strategy in Korea. Utilizing a survey experiment data from “Survey for Public Awareness in Korea on Development Cooperation (2022),” I show how better understanding on the international actors of development cooperation makes a difference in the public awareness. Specifically, those with higher level of "trust" on international organization and developing countries are likely to exert complementary effect and show higher support on Korea's contribution, once provided of descriptive news about current challenges in developing world. While negative imagery seems induce more immediate response on ODA support, such complementary effect implies the importance of building a social trust about the global community and promoting better understanding of the developing world, and how the public awareness can lead to a substantial support of Korea's ODA in the long-run, without facing "compassion fatigue."