Building Knowledge Economies for Senior Asian Policymakers

With the participation of more than 34 guests from different countries, including Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, and Ireland, the forum “Advanced Strategies for Development: Building Knowledge Economies for Senior Asian Policymakers” was held on February 22 at the Lotte Hotel Seoul, sponsored by the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management and World Bank Institute. The event was moderated by our own Ms. Min-Kyung Cho and was divided into three sessions. After the opening Ceremony, the welcoming and opening remarks and the brief introduction to the Forum and Participants, session one began. How do we Build the Knowledge Economy? was the topic for session one, in which Dr. David Dollar from World Bank, acted as moderator and explained about placing knowledge- and innovation-related policies at the heart of development strategies for countries at all levels of development.   Dr. Jean-Eric Aubert, Lead Specialist at WBI Building gave the keynote speech: Building Knowledge Economies as Advanced Development Strategies: Lessons from a Decade of Research. The last presentation was Korean Case: How to succeed in Carrying out a KE Strategy presented by Dr. Joonghae Suh, Director General, Ministry of Planning and Budget. Dr. Suh gave an overview of Korea´s Development Process, by analyzing Korean Economy, from 1945 to 2005 and Korea´s Development Strategies from 1960 to present, including new challenges for the future. 

After a delightful lunch, session two started. The topic for this session was What has been the Experience of Other Regions and the moderator for this section was Mr. Philip Karp, from Word Bank Institute.  Dr. Tom McCarthy, Chief Executive of Trinity-IMI Graduate School of Management, Ireland, presented The Experience of Ireland, where he shared some educational and economical facts about Ireland. Ms. May Hanania, Research Associate in The Center for Public Policy Research and Dialogue of Jordan, was in charge of the last presentation of session two, The Experience of the Middle East Region. Ms. Hanania presented a very realistic and sincere view of the economic and educational situation in the Arabic Countries and the challenges ahead. To conclude the presentations, session three developed the topic The Role of ICT Infrastructure, for which Dr. Sungchul Chung, President of Science & Technology Policy Institute, proceeded as moderator. The last presentation was lead by Dr. Daeje Chin, Former Minister of Information & Communication, former President of Samsung Electronics. Dr. Chin’s presentation, Korean Experience in Informatization, included a brief analysis of National Informatization, Status Korean ICT Industry, Viable Roles of Government and Korean e-Government. To conclude the event, the participants were divided in three different groups where they had the opportunity to discuss emerging issues in their countries, and one person from each group acted as a facilitator, to share with the rest of the participants the conclusions obtained from the group discussion. The Final Comments and Closing Ceremony were given by Dr. Jean-Eric Aubert. 

After the closure of the event, KDI hosted the farewell dinner, which included a wide variety of Korean food and drinks. Participants were also able to enjoy some folkloric Korean music and dances.

By Andrea Bono (2008 MPP, Guatemala)