A Critical Review of the New Community Movement of Korea with Special Reference to the Concept of Basic Needs Approach

Abstract

This paper is intended to review the New Community Movement of Korea in the context of the basic needs approach to development. Although a number or studies on the New Community Movement (NCM) which has drawn wide attentions from the countries struggling to uplift the situation of the poverty-stricken rural areas has been conducted, methods and inquiries into the NCM have been largely made without specific reference to a newly emerging philosophy of the basic needs approach to development. In this connection, this study is to shed some lights on commonalities and possible lessons to be learnt by comparing the NCM and the basic needs approach at the micro-level of regional development. Within little more than a decade, strategies of developing nations have shifted from an almost exclusive concern with economic growth, capital-intensive industrialization and central control of development planning. Recently, a new philosophy of development calls for moderate, diversified and balanced growth, integrated spatial development, and increased agricultural production. It aims at more equitable distribution of income for the rural poor, labor intensive industrialization, and decentralized planning and decision-making. However, this train of thoughts needs to he calibrated to take its foot on ground to graft a new thought of development into an unique socio-economic environment of country. The new approach to development being advocated by international circles or motivated by the country's indigeneous awareness is largely based on growth with equity centering on agriculture and the poor majority of the nation.