Special Lecture (20171017 Busan)

The Evolution of Saemaul Undong in Korea

SO, Jin Kwang, Ph. D.
(President/Korea Saemaul Undong Center)

1. Introduction

Saemaul Undong (hereafter SMU) was adopted as a national agendum in 1970, when Korean rural
villages were mired in a chronic poverty, to modernize those backward rural communities. In the
aftermath of several previous national rural development programs that had utterly failed, SMU was
designed from the inception to make the villagers identify their own problems through their own
capacity, define the common interests of the villages, and implement development programs by the
villagers, for the villagers, and of the villagers. To support this strategy, the government integrated all
rural development projects, agricultural, and other farmer-oriented policies into one policy under the
name of SMU, and established new departments in each ministry to support SMU at village level. The
modus operandi of government officials began to change from the old office-centered ways or desk-
work to the new field-oriented ways. All in all, SMU was a community development approach driven
by the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) to improve ‘quality of life’ in the community.
SMU can be defined as a community development approach that has recognized a village as
the unit of community development, which is bound with strong social, cultural, and economic
cohesiveness. The villagers living in the same village could develop a strong sense of community with
each other through frequent face-to-face contacts in their daily life. Each villager could make and
keep their own rules, and undertook responsibilities on the part of villagers who had to abide by them
for the sake of saving face—the villagers obeyed the rules not to be blamed by others. Therefore,
SMU could be said as a community development approach that promoted the common development
of the village by tapping on the responsibility of individual villager.
SMU, which started in rural areas first in 1970, substantially contributed to the remarkable
modernization of rural communities as well as urban communities in Korea by enhancing villagers’
capabilities and capacities. Not only that, SMU made a positive impact on the entire operating system
of Korean society at large. Since 1974, SMU approach has been widely applied to the various sectors
in the urban areas as well, including work places, offices, factories, and even schools. The Factory
SMU, for one example, brought about an overall quality enhancement in products manufactured in
Korea, improvement in productivity and labor-management relations, and the drastic growth in export
industry. Thus SMU was the driving force behind the innovation in agriculture, manufacturing,
services, and every other sector in Korea, instilling a sense of responsibility in each stakeholder’s
mind. This way, SMU began to evolve to solve problems up to that time, and again started to
challenge inefficiencies for better life altogether by building some ‘value chains’ from production to
final consumption via processing. Particularly SMU leaders in each sector played decisive roles to
make their workplaces more efficient and effective and their performance properly and fairly
evaluated. According to these evaluations, an incentive system was introduced to reward outstanding
performance. This last practice proved to be a turning point in Korean society by changing the
recruitment system of elites into a new kind of meritocracy.
SMU has been evolving in a manner of forming different communities, innovating in daily
lives, and then challenging any inefficiencies for further improvements. In the beginning, SMU solved
the poverty problem by reforming economic communities, and regained ‘a sense of being together’ by
practicing environmental communities, which improved the living conditions of the villagers. This
sense of community, in other words, the feeling of sharing the commonality altogether, energized and
operationalized SMU to make every corner or field in Korean society more efficient and effective.
SMU also formed social communities and contributed toward solving many difficult social issues that
had loomed up as Korea was being industrialized. Again, by forming cultural communities, SMU
enhanced cultural accessibility for all residents in the community. Likewise, SMU is constantly
morphing itself to adjust to any given situation and time, and is still evolving. As the 21st Century
unfolded with its new ethos emphasizing international development cooperation, SMU formed yet a
new community, the global SMU community around the world, and is contributing to the equality of
global citizenry while trying to renovate the international development cooperation sector toward a
sustainable human civilization.
On the other hand, the SMU spirit of diligence, self-help, and cooperation has left an
indelible mark in Korea’s social integration which had been further complicated by industrialization.
Those who are not diligent cannot be asked to bear social responsibilities, and an un-cooperative
person can neither head a community nor lead a group. Thus the diligence spirit is a virtue that
justifies a person’s reason to exist, much as the cooperation spirit is a virtue needed to maintain the
identity of an organization or group in a society. With the diligence and cooperation spirits,
individuals and communities can secure the basis for ‘self-help’. This ‘self-help’ basis will keep the
individual or community from being denied its reason for existence under any circumstances.
Therefore, the ‘self-help’ spirit can be viewed as a seed for peace. This seed, self-help can be
cultivated by diligence and cooperation spirit.
In this context, the spirit of diligence, self-help, and cooperation is not something confined to
SMU in Korea, but a universal virtue that will help mankind materialize its desires and equitable
rights. So, the SMU approach, based on the spirit of diligence, self-help, and cooperation, is a ‘new
development paradigm’ that is applicable to any situation in the world even in the 21st Century. SMU
is not a specific project but a methodology, not a special experience of Koreans in the 1970s, but a
universal approach applicable to all, at all times and under all circumstances regardless of
development level.
Moreover, SMU was a product of private-public collaboration. By embracing all
stakeholders it built a new ‘governance’ system from the decision-making phase of choosing what
projects to do and deciding how to do their choices, accumulated social capital by triggering voluntary
participation of the villagers, and secured sustainability by constantly adapting and evolving. These
outcomes of SMU are the key terminologies that explain the ‘development phenomenon’ in this 21st
Century. Hence SMU approach has a track record of setting up a ‘governance systems’, accumulating
‘social capital’, and securing ‘sustainability’ to build a better future under any circumstances.
This discourse approaches the outcomes of SMU in terms of ‘sustainability’, ‘governance’,
and ‘social capital’ and seeks its relevancy in other situations in other countries in this 21st Century.
Specifically this treatise defines the ‘development phenomenon’ as a desirable change in time and
space from an evolution point of view, and explains it in terms of interaction between the two—that is,
‘development’ being composed of pace of change (time factor) and direction of change (space factor).
Therefore, SMU is a change-management paradigm to improve the quality of life of people in relation
to their habitat or settlement space. For this, SMU built and cultivated various value chains for
inclusive growth by providing fair opportunities to all stakeholders in rural villages, in urban
communities, in offices, in factories, and even in schools. These value chains demonstrated inclusive
society for inclusive growth, thereby maintaining or keeping balances among sectors, fields, ages,
regions, and between female and male activities.

2. What is ‘community development’ in the 21st Century?

Community development is a compound term composed of ‘community’ and ‘development’. As such,

it involves a value judgment toward space phenomenon in the communities. Thus if the value
included in the ‘development’ changes, then the meaning of community development will also change.
Specifically, the meaning of development can be interpreted differently according to disparate fields
relative to human habitat.
The industrial revolution contributed to explaining the progress of mankind mainly in terms
of economic growth. It also contributed to approaching economic development through the lens of
production activities. But development in human life can have a combination of complex elements.
Economy and environment can clash with each other; social progress and economic progress may be
pursued on opposite tracks; or the two may complement each other. In history, there have been
numerous examples where economic progress led to cultural progress.
On the other hand, economic activities and social structure have close relationships with each
other. Even classic capitalism, based on laissez faire, recognizes maintaining social security as the
public sector’s critical role. Therefore, the public sector (i.e. government) has the obligation to keep
the social safety net, and thereby to form and maintain the mainstream by using tax imposed on the
results of free economic activities in the private sector.
Also, community development can be recognized in terms of stakeholder’s role and its scope,
interactions among stakeholders, and stability in the social structure. The scope and role of the
stakeholder can be explained by ‘governance’; interactions among stakeholders by ‘social capital’;
and the stability in the social structure by ‘sustainability’, respectively.
Therefore, community development in the 21st Century could be realized by establishing
‘governance systems’, by accumulating ‘social capital’, and finally, by practicing ‘sustainability’ for
the future. For Korea’s SMU approach to be applied in other countries to solve the poverty problem
and to cultivate inclusive societies for inclusive growth, it would be needed to review or re-evaluate
those past experiences of SMU from the current paradigm or perspective point of view, and to show
the validity or relevancy of SMU in the 21st Century. In this context, if it could be proved, Korea’s
experience of SMU since 1970s had established ‘governance’, accumulated ‘social capital’, and
secured ‘sustainability’, it can be applied to other situations even in the 21st Century.

1) Sustainability
There exists completely opposite views as to the Industrial Revolution’s merit vis-à-vis mankind: one
extreme perspective takes the positive point of view, recognizing the materialistic abundance and
convenience of life; the other extreme point of view focuses on the negative effects of the Revolution
such as destruction of communities resulting from the diversified economic activities and division of
labor, as well as prejudice and bias toward development. The production of goods caused the change
of natural resources, and people have learned that the changed natural resources could bring them
both benefit and cost at the same time. The economic activities typically draw the inputs from nature,
process those inputs, and produce goods. In other words, the natural resources turn into consumable
goods by applying energy to them, and this process of using energy changes the global environment.
Moreover, the goods turn into trash or wastes through the consumption process, causing a change in
human habitat globally when this trash is treated in a wrong way. Such a global environmental change
will be passed onto future generations as a costly liability.
Under these circumstances, the correlation between economic activities and environment
began to be re-evaluated from the flow of materials (Kneese, Ayres and D’Arge,1970:7-13). The
mankind came to the realization that their satisfaction in life is not determined by the economic
factors alone, but also by the environmental factors as well. The economy and environment are
interlinked with each other through cost and benefit. We sometimes have to sacrifice the environment
for the sake of economy, or vice versa. In short, a new objective emerged as to human progress—the
sustainability in our civilization.
The sustainability of human civilization has different meanings depending on the sectors. It
has different elements by different sectors such as economic, environmental, social, and cultural
sector. Of particular interest is the global environmental pollution and climate change which impose
huge cost to all human beings, threaten benefit, and impact the way we live. That’s why it is necessary
to form the environmental community through any actions or practices as SMU did from 1970, by
networking all villagers into the same T/F to clean the community and keep or arrange the common
environment in good shape altogether. The limit in economic growth, global environmental crisis, loss
of social harmony, cultural conflicts—all these belong to a new ‘Revolution’ in the spatial
phenomenon that need to be reviewed afresh in relation to ‘development meaning’.
Meanwhile, as the economic sustainability clashes with environmental sustainability,
mankind has arrived at a new turning point in its development paradigm. This turning point requires a
practice by each and every individual human being. For the practices of individuals to be sustainable,
the power and the responsibility of each individual have to be aligned perfectly. For such alignment of
power and responsibility of each individual ‘a sense of community’ or ‘the common interest’ must be
established. By the same token, differences in sustainability in different fields can also be secured by
forming different communities.
 <Table 1> shows the link between differences in sustainability in different sectors and the
corresponding sense of community. A different sustainability type in a different field has correlation
with different sense of community. For example, as economic sustainability may be achieved through
economic community, environmental sustainability can be obtained through environmental
community.

<Table 1> Different sustainability types and corresponding means of solution

Sustainability types Means of solution

Economic sustainability Economic community
Environmental sustainability Environmental community
Social sustainability Social community
Cultural sustainability Cultural community

On the other hand, ‘development phenomenon’ has a kind of succession in relation to the
time factor, so it can be recognized as repeated cycles or a circular causation process. A circular
causation process can then be divided into reproduction for expanding, or reproduction for reducing or
extinction. Therefore, if we were to approach community development in terms of time factor, we
should have a pivot point on the past-present continuum. Such as pivot point may cause repeated
cycles, or reproduction for expanding or extinction. In short, the decision-making method exerts a
critical influence in deciding ‘the direction of development’. Since SMU was implemented with the
village as development unit and through a decision making process by the villagers, for the villagers,
and of the villagers, SMU has been evolving by reacting all the more sensitively to the changes in the
habitat.

2) Governance
There is a paradigm shift under way “from government to governance” in the management scheme of
public structure such as state and community. The concept of ‘governance’ being discussed currently
in the context of such paradigm shift may be defined in various ways relative to different practices.
However, there seems to be a consensus that as far as ‘governance’ is concerned, the smaller the
community, the more efficiently the community can realize its common interest in a democratic way.
Also the same goes true with civil society that is closely related to the concept of ‘governance’.
Generally, the smaller the community, the larger opportunity for individual participation there will be.
Thus when the concept of ‘governance’ is applied to a small community, the possibility for flexible
development increases and there can be more chances or possibilities for the villagers to take part in
their common projects voluntarily and to enhance their ownership for the common interests.
Generally speaking, civil-society building based on the sense of responsibility and ownership
of the citizen is rooted in the ‘governance’ of small-scale communities. This type of community
governance is different from the traditional government style or approach which is defined in terms of
its implementation structure and implementation method. The implementation method to realize
public interest depends on how power is exercised, the decision-making process, the information-
generating capacity, and the citizen’s role in production of public goods and public services, while the
implementation structure is a factor of organizational structure, leadership, core values, and common
goals (SO, Jin Kwang, 2007:96).
In implementation method, ‘government’ usually exerts concentrated power in a hierarchical
manner maintaining and managing public interest with ‘command and control’, while ‘governance’
links up all stakeholders and builds collaborative systems to define, produce, and supply the public
goods jointly. That is to say that in ‘governance system’, the power or authority is shared and
exercised by all stakeholders jointly. In ‘government system’, the producer and the consumer of
public goods are strictly distinguished, whereas in ‘governance system’ the two seem to be merged
more often than not. It’s because the consumer of the public goods, that is the citizen, also participates
in the production and delivery of public goods by engaging themselves in decision making about what
and how much public goods to produce.

<Table 2> SMU evaluation framework with ‘Government’-‘Governance’ comparison

Factors Government Governance
Organizational Centrally concentrated Dispersed
structure
Leadership Government official Main negotiator among
Implementation
all stakeholders
structure
Core values Traditional capital Social capital generation
generation
Common goals Nation building Civil society building
How power is Hierarchical, Unilateral Shared among all
exercised stakeholders
Decision-making Instruction and control, Multilateral negotiation
process (Originally majority vote according to their roles
by people)
Implementation Information- Public sector>Private Public sector<Private
method generating capacity Sector Sector
Citizen’s role in Consumer or client Consumer as well as co-
production of public producer
goods
Resource mobilization Mainly endogenous Combination of
system resources input endogenous/exogenous
Source: SO, Jin Kwang (2007: 98).

Therefore if SMU is evaluated from the perspective of ‘governance’, the driving force of
SMU may be viewed as centered on the process. <Table 2> shows the evaluation framework for SMU
as the two paradigms of ‘government’ and ‘governance’ can be distinguished (SO, Jin Kwang, 2007:
98). In this context, SMU was based on ‘grass root democracy’ from the beginning, even though the
national power in Korea in 1970s had been exercised somewhat one-sidedly.

3) Social capital
The community development also has different meanings according to the size of space. The
exceptional outcome of SMU is in part due to the fact that the village was the unit of spatial
development project for the common interests. The village is a daily life stage for the villagers, and
villagers encounter with each other frequently in the village to identify their faces easily. This allows
an equitable sharing and distribution of the costs and benefits related to the community affairs. When
the costs and benefits related to the community affairs are shared and distributed equitably, then the
villager’s responsibility and power can be aligned more perfectly. This alignment of the power and
responsibility of individual member of the community can work to form, maintain, and manage a
healthy community, and become the driving force to gear community development with the
development of the entire nation.
Meanwhile, as community development strategies based on economic activities in various
fields began to be reorganized and visualized, the villagers started to get keenly interested in the
quality of their life which is hard to measure quantitatively. As the practical means and process to
pursue the improvement of their quality of life attracted the villagers’ attention, the formation of social
capital added a new meaning to the community development. Physical capital such as money, land or
houses (as objects of exclusive ownership) was a source of conflicts and bitter feelings of relative
deprivation. The two, conflicts and relative deprivation, are closely connected with each other since
ownership is exclusive by nature. But material wealth or physical capital does not necessarily mean
quality of life in and of itself.
It is not the ownership of material wealth or physical capital that determines the quality of
life, but how you use it. The use of material wealth or physical capital necessarily involves human
counterparts and, in the process of involving these counterparts, the capacity to manage the social
relationship can even act as a substitute to the material wealth or physical capital, or at least can
complement it. This capacity to manage the social relationships is called as social capital and it is
recognized and measured with respect to the use of material wealth or physical capital, not the
ownership of it.
For the concept of social capital to be utilized as the framework to evaluate the outcomes of
SMU, it must be in accord with the key performance indicators of SMU. SMU includes a chain of
processes whereby social capital can be accumulated. The objective of measuring social capital is
related to the way how its utility is recognized. Such utility, in turn, is connected to the main elements
of the concept. <Table 3> shows how the main elements and expression factors of social capital are
related to each utility.
These main elements and expression factors of social capital may be defined and expressed
differently according to the special situations of different communities. Thus if we measure social
capital for a certain community as in <Table 3>, we can prescribe the utility or function of each main
element. For example, in order to secure a common basis of a community, we need to enhance the
mutual trust among members of the community. To set the common goals of the community, the
participation of community members must be increased. In order to maintain the neighborhood and
community in good shape, the villagers need to strengthen their networks. For mobilization of
resources and strengthening of safety net in the community, institutions and norms must be set up and
observed. For the common interests of the community in the future, altruism must be practiced
through volunteer activities (SO, Jin Kwang, 2004: 110).

<Table 3> SMU evaluation framework with social capital perspectives

Elements or categories Expression factors Utility (or function)
Trust Level of trust in transactions Securing common basis
Participation Participation in the community Setting common goal
activities
Network Level of support system Maintaining the neighborhood
established and community
Institution and norm Formation of social norms Mobilization of resources and
strengthening of safety nets
Altruism Helping neighbors in need Creating common good
Source: SO, Jin Kwang (2004: 110)

On the other hand, for social capital to become the framework for SMU’s evaluation, first,
social capital should match the ultimate ideology of SMU, and, second, we should be able to compare
how each of the elements that make up the concept of social capital is changing through SMU. The
basic ideology of SMU is diligence, self-help, and cooperation. Diligence is a virtue that is required of
an individual for his or her participation in community activities. Also, it is a prerequisite condition to
gain trust in a relationship with others. Self-help, too, is a basis to earn others’ trust and a capacity to
observe institutions and norms. Cooperation is the basis of networks and the final product of trust.
Accordingly, <Table 3> can be used as the basic framework to evaluate SMU from the
perspective of social capital. Those outcomes that have been highlighted as the accomplishments of
SMU at village level, such as ‘a sense of common prosperity’, and ‘improved communal wellbeing’
through the villagers’ capacity building, could be achieved by accumulating social capital. The
objectives of SMU are linked to the functions of social capital, and these functions are the outcomes
that are materialized by practicing those expression factors in <Table 3>. The expression factor per
each main element can thus be used as the key performance indicator of SMU.

4) Hierarchy of key terms in community development

The most critical task mankind has to figure out in the 21st Century is how to make sure human
civilization can go on sustainably. Such ‘sustainability’ can be recognized in different ways depending
on the scope and the role of respective stakeholders, and the pivot point in the past-present continuum.
Defining the scope and the role of respective stakeholders is the starting point of ‘governance’ as the
base of individual practice. Therefore, it can be said that ‘governance’ is the very means to realize
sustainability of human civilization.
Meanwhile, the definition and pursuit of common values by all stakeholders is dependent on
the level of trust and networks among the community members, as well as their participation level in
their own common programs. So the practical means for ‘governance’ can be viewed as ‘social
capital’. As shown in <Figure 1>, the ultimate goal of community development is achieving the
sustainability of human civilization. This ultimate goal can be realized through good governance, and
the effect of ‘governance’ varies according to the level of social capital.
Physical capital such as money, land, housing, food and other properties is necessary, but
not sufficient for raising QOL(Quality of Life). People’s QOL depends on social relationships among
people interacting with others in the same space: village, community, region or state. It’s why we need
another form of capital, here social capital, when socializing with other people.

Source: SO, Jin Kwang (2016: 12)

 <Figure 1> Hierarchy of key terms in community development

3. The outcomes of Saemaul Undong

The outcomes of SMU can be approached in terms of current paradigms in the field of community
development; practicing sustainability, establishing community governance, and accumulating social
capital. Otherwise, it will be of no use to apply the outcomes of SMU into other situations in the 21st
Century.

1) Practicing sustainability for community development

SMU in Korea could secure the sustainability for community development since it had been
implemented by enhancing villagers’ capacities and capabilities. The Korean government recognized
that the large gap between urban and rural areas impeded the industrialization process. To resolve this
problem, the Korean government began to implement SMU in 1970. Therefore, rural areas,
agriculture, and farmers were the target of SMU in the early 1970s. The Korean government, however,
did not have enough money and capacity to support all rural areas at that time. Utilizing the villagers
was the only solution under these circumstances.
People tend to respond most sensitively and adjust immediately when things happen within
their daily lives’ activities and within the distance of face-to-face contacts. People tend to maintain
the best appearances to others whom they encounter on a daily basis. When face is lost under these
circumstances, these incidents can easily cause social conflicts due to excessive desire. In this light, it
is important to note that SMU was implemented at village level. The average size of one village at
that time was composed of 53 households whose members shared living space and had face-to-face
contacts many times a day. The government thus tried to implement the SMU by the villagers, for the
villagers, and of the villagers through their own capacity.
In this context, the Korean government distributed 335 bags of cement and 0.5 ton of iron
bar to all villages in rural areas in order to trigger their capacity, ownership and voluntary
participation. But the government did not get involved in their decision-making on how to use these
construction materials. So the villagers started discussing how to use the materials provided by the
government. Also, they elected their representatives (Saemaul Leaders) and formed a village
organization (Saemaul Undong Council) to implement the SMU projects they decided to do. They
identified their problems and prioritized projects to maximize their common profit at village level.
They began to have a sense of ownership and responsibility on the decisions they made for
themselves. Villagers corrected the shortfall in the needed resources by themselves, and voluntarily
participated in the projects.
 <Figure 2> Sustainability of Saemaul Undong

The outcomes of SMU project were shared by all the villagers and this served as a good
guidance for the next phase. The government invited competition among villages by evaluating the
outcomes and differentiating the subsequent support according to the performance. This competition
system made a circular causation process for reproduction through a virtuous circle where villagers
mobilized their own endogenous resources for community development. The circular causation
process of SMU contributed to securing the sustainability for community development. <Figure 2>
shows the process of securing the sustainability through strengthening villagers’ capacity in SMU.

2) Establishing community governance

Many researches point out, as the success factors of SMU, the ability and support of Saemaul leaders,
government’s careful considerations for SMU, appropriate inputs of resources, technical guidance,
villagers’ voluntary participation and ownership. In other words, key success factor of SMU may be
shorthanded as an organization of individual elements and the mobilization of the same to achieve a
common goal. SMU, with its complexity and variety, has its own logic of processes to mobilize
various community resources and unify different activities of members. SMU is not an amalgam of
many fragmented projects to pursue one specific goal, but rather a principle which can be applied in
any case.
After integrating various rural development projects into one title named as SMU, the
Korean government created new departments to support SMU in each ministry at the central
government level, and also formed similar organizations in local administrative agencies (local
governments). In this way, a vertical governance system was formed to implement SMU as the central
government and the local governments began to share each role to support SMU at village level. Each
ministry of the central government, meanwhile, participated in the process of integrating and adjusting
a lot of similar projects which purported to serve the rural communities, agriculture, and farmers.
There had been similar policies in each ministry of the central government targeting rural community
development. After SMU, all the policies targeting rural community development, approached by
each ministry, began to be merged into SMU. In this situation, each ministry had to coordinate or
share some roles to support SMU. Thus the government could build up a horizontal governance
system at the central, provincial, district, and commune level, respectively, based on this process.
Finally SMU could build ‘the grid-type governance’ by combining these vertical and horizontal
governance systems.
The way SMU contributed to the establishment of this governance system can be evaluated
as follows with respect to the implementation methodologies. That is how the power or authority was
exercised, how the decision was made, how information was generated, what role of citizens in the
production of public goods, and how the resources or funds were mobilized.
First, with respect to the way power was exercised, SMU was implemented very differently
from the way the traditional ‘government’ was exercising its power one-sidedly. The government
revitalized and used the semi-dormant or meagerly practiced the traditional method of communal
activities such as Doorae or Hyangak. This and other measures sensitized the villagers’ community
awareness and triggered the voluntary and spontaneous participation of the villagers. SMU was trying
to reach deep down into the past in order to induce a desirable change for the future, and it needed a
linking mechanism to connect the inputs with proper outputs. Government’s trigger and the villagers’
voluntary participation worked to enhance the efficiency of such a linking mechanism. The linking of
government’s motivation in the form of active support from the early days of SMU with the villagers’
voluntary participation proved to be the working formula for SMU’s success.
Due to the success of this mechanism to link elements and change the future, many other
erstwhile unsuccessful projects that were in the backburner at the time began importing this
implementation mechanism from SMU and gained new momentum. They were student volunteer
projects, electrification projects for rural and fishing villages, mobile clinics, and family planning
programs. These were all old projects that had begun prior to 1970 when SMU was launched. This
fact alone proves that SMU had a comprehensive approach that was enough to incorporate all other
projects aimed at improving people’s quality of life.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture-Fisheries played a pivotal role
in the initial stages of SMU. After the assimilation of many governmental projects to the SMU
mechanism, most of government ministries got involved in SMU one way or another. In other words,
the projects which were implemented under SMU in 1970s were related to many ministries: the
Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture-Fisheries, the Ministry of Commerce and
Industry, the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, the Ministry of
Communication, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Information, the Agency for Science and
Technology, the Rural Development Agency, and the Forest Service Agency. Soon all the
government ministries and public agencies were involved in SMU. Therefore, there was a need to
coordinate all these different ministries and agencies and the Ministry of Home Affairs did that job in
the central government. Additionally, a Central Council of SMU was formed to augment the
government’s coordination. But it was always up to the villagers to decide the priority order of
projects that had to utilize the limited resources. So they formed autonomous organs such as the SMU
Council, the Council of Saemaul Leaders, the Council of Saemaul Women’s Associations, etc., in
order to manage the common assets and other administrative duties.
Second, SMU was implemented based on a bottom-up decision-making process among the
villagers. Villagers elected their own Saemaul leaders by vote, surveyed the village conditions, and
decided the priority order of projects by themselves. Therefore, different projects were implemented
in each village, although government support was identical in the early stage of SMU. In other words,
the approach or mechanism of SMU was by the village people, of the village people, and for the
village people. Government’s supports such as provision of construction materials and administrative,
technical advices to villagers, started as the main engine of SMU, but later SMU began to be
implemented by a bottom-up approach in the field of community development.
The fact that SMU was a bottom-up model of community development can be verified from
the decision-making process. No matter how much resources were put in, it could not have been a
success, had there not been the voluntary participation from villagers. As with all innovations, SMU
also required change agents in its early stage as leaders created fellow travelers. Saemaul leaders were
elected by vote of villagers to represent them. Therefore, all decision-makings such as prioritizing
projects, villagers’ contribution ratio, who will benefit first and next, etc., were done by bottom-up
approaches. Although Korea was ruled by a draconian central government that wielded absolute
power back then, SMU alone was practicing this grass root democracy so thoroughly. These
experiences served as a backdrop for the renaissance of local governments in Korea in 1990s.
Third, Saemaul projects were decided upon based on the information the villagers generated
by themselves. The characteristics of specific projects prove that SMU was implemented by a full-
scale involvement of government. Until 1980, each major Saemaul project was connected to all
government departments’ support policies. As with other community developments, SMU too, was a
scheme to manage a carefully calculated change of the future. Similar to other community
developments, SMU determined the direction of change and managed its pace. Determination of the
direction of change is closely related to creating the means of that change which transpired later on.
The direction of change to be achieved by SMU would affect each and every member in the
community. So the villagers would decide which way to change the future of their village. Villagers’
participation in the process of decision-making granted them at once the responsibility as well as the
benefits. This enabled them with an optimal utilization of resources. Through such a process,
information-generating capacity was enhanced remarkably.
Fourth, SMU transformed the villagers into co-producers of public goods by their full
participation. Since SMU started with the first stage of base building and progressed into the second
stage of self-help, and third stage of completing self-reliance, there was a planned strategy to mobilize
the voluntary participation of the villagers from the early days on. From 1971 to 1973, SMU was
implemented focusing on the construction of facilities to improve the living conditions and on
production infrastructures in 34,665 villages. From 1974, the government support was reduced in
order to shed off the old way of government initiating and supporting the projects, and shift toward
the more villagers-centered, self-helping SMU with more active participation of the villagers. This
second stage lasted until 1976. From 1977, SMU in rural areas entered the last phase, the stage of
completing self-reliance. The reason behind the sustainable implementation of SMU was because of
the three-strata plan of ‘basic’, ‘self-help’, and ‘self-reliance’ stages that was set up early on, and the
corresponding implementation system that was applied at each stage.
Stages of development in SMU are classified by outputs and performances. <Table 4 >
shows the number of villages in each stage—basic, self-help, and self-reliance in the 1970s. Villages
at the basic stage were dominant until 1972 but decreased in 1973 by 31 percent. Instead, self-help
villages were dominant from the end of 1973 to the end of 1976. From the end of 1977, self-reliant
villages were dominant. By the year 1977, there was no more basic village in Korea. In late 1980s,
34,922 villages or 98.3 percent out of 35,530 villages were self-reliant villages, with 583 villages or
1.6 percent being self-managed villages, and 25 villages or 0.1 percent, welfare villages.

<Table 4> Number of villages in basic, self-help, self-reliance stage in 1970s

Number of Number of Self- Number of Self-help Number of Basic
Year total reliant Villages Villages Villages
villages Number Percentage Number Percentage Number Percentage
1972 34,665 2,307 7 13,943 40 18,415 53
1973 34,665 4,246 12 19,763 57 10,656 31
1974 34,665 7,000 20 21,500 62 6,165 18
1975 35,031 10,049 29 20,936 60 4,046 11
1976 35,031 15,680 45 19,049 54 302 1
1977 35,031 23,322 67 11,709 33 - -
1978 34,815 28,701 82 6,114 18 - -
1979 34,871 33,893 97 976 3 - -
Source: SO, Jin Kwang (2007: 104)

By the end of 1986, there was no basic or self-help village among 35,217 villages in Korea,
but 14,545 villages or 41.3 percent of self-reliant villages, 19,132 villages or 54.3 percent of self-
managed villages, and 1,540 villages or 4.4 percent of welfare villages. Such an outcome was made
possible because SMU changed the clan-based, blood-tied villages into space-based, communal
communities. Furthermore, it was due to the bottom-up system of decision-making and
implementation which was supported by massive voluntary participation of the villagers, and a
thoroughly competitive system that aligned benefit with responsibility.
Lastly, SMU had changed the resources mobilization from an exogenous to an endogenous
system. Encouraged by the government support in the early stages, SMU became a campaign to
improve the quality of life. Soon the villagers began to enjoy the fruits of communal activities.
Eventually, villagers felt confident in their own ability to develop their villages by themselves through
diligence, self-help, and cooperation. As a result, SMU was settled as a bottom-up community
development paradigm. This bottom-up model replenished social capital at village level, which is
known to diminish during industrialization, and helped Korea achieve sustainable industrialization.
Therefore, sustained economic growth in Korea was made possible by accumulation of social capital
through SMU and the accumulated social capital alleviating the negative effects of industrialization.
<Table 5> indicates that villagers’ voluntary contribution sustained SMU, which was
initiated by the early governmental support. In short, the status of finances between 1971 and 1979
shows that villagers’ contribution stands out to be 71.93 percent while pure governmental support was
a meager 28.07 percent. This is why SMU was a bottom-up community development paradigm in
spite of the early governmental support. In other words, SMU was a product of an endogenous,
spontaneous resource mobilization system by the villagers from its early stage.

<Table 5> Inputs in Saemaul Undong by year and source

Governmental Support Villagers’ Total
Total
(in hundred million won) Contribution Villagers’
(hundred
Year Loans Contribu-
million National Regional Rate
Total Amount tion
won) Budget Budget (%) (%)
1971 122 41 27 14 - 81 66.4 66.4
1972 313 33 20 13 - 280 89.5 89.5
1973 984 215 125 90 - 769 78.2 78.2
1974 1,328 308 121 173 14 1,020 76.8 77.9
1975 2,959 1,653 666 579 408 1,306 44.1 57.9
1976 3,226 1,651 484 396 771 1,575 48.8 72.7
1977 4,665 2,460 599 723 1,138 2,205 47.3 71.6
1978 6,342 3,384 654 773 1,957 2,958 46.6 77.5
1979 7,582 4,252 1,258 1,010 1,984 3,330 43.9 70.1
6,272
27,521 7,725(28.1%) 13,524 49.1 71.9%
(22.8%)
Source: The author’s calculation from Ministry of Home Affairs (1980)

3) Accumulating social capital

With SMU, a new tradition concerned group culture sprang up. Back then, Korean government
concentrated on lifting up whole economic conditions, so it invested all the resources in
industrialization policies. After continuing with these policies, some serious problems emerged such
as development gap and income discrepancies between urban and rural areas. The government could
not afford to leave the ‘rural problems’ stand in the way of further industrialization of the nation any
longer. The problem was that available economic resources were quite limited.
 As a solution, the Korean government employed a competitive system in order to induce the
villagers’ voluntary participation. This incentive system prompted the awareness among the villagers
that theirs were space-based, communal communities which ultimately contributed to the
accumulation of social capital in each village. Villagers’ participation in communal projects is the key
element of social capital. Although social capital is known to include many elements such as trust,
participation, networks, social norms, altruism, etc., trust and network are the products of participation,
not the causes.
Hence the villagers’ voluntary and spontaneous participation confirms the fact that SMU
contributed to the accumulation of social capital. Spontaneous participation by the villagers allows an
efficient distribution of limited resources. To induce such spontaneous participation, the Korean
government supported the villagers with some resources and administrative or technical aid. SMU,
which started to develop rural villages, instilled among the villagers an awareness of a space-based,
communal community, and in the process, the villagers developed communal values that are
impossible to achieve individually. <Table 6> shows the number of villages and number of people
who participated in Saemaul Undong from 1971 to 1979.
As shown in <Table 6>, there were two main reasons that helped increase participation by
the villagers, both reasons involving social capital. First, based on the performance from the early
projects to improve the visible living conditions and thereby instill an awareness of a space-based,
communal community, the government differentiated the subsequent material support according to the
performance and the villagers developed trust in the government from this. Second, villagers
recovered their confidence in their ability to pursue their own agenda after seeing the positive results
from their joint efforts. All in all, support from government in the early stages of SMU worked to
remind the villagers that their hard work would pay off (triggering ‘diligence’ spirit). In the process,
the villagers began to feel proud of their own achievements (inducing ‘self-help’ spirit), and
ultimately realized that the joint activities in their villages were the best approach to realize common
good that could not be attained individually (prompting ‘cooperation’ spirit).

<Table 6> Numbers of villages and participants in Saemaul Undong by year

Number of
Number of
Year Number of Villages Participants per
Participants (1,000)
Village
1971 33,267 7,200 216
1972 34,665 32,000 923
1973 34,665 69,280 1,999
1974 35,031 106,852 3,050
1975 36,547 116,880 3,198
1976 36,557 117,528 3,215
1977 36,557 137,193 3,753
1978 36,257 270,928 7,472
1979 36,271 242,078 6,674
Total (9 years) 35,535 (in average) 1,099,939 3,439(in average)
Source: SO, Jin Kwang (2007: 100)

4. The evolution of Saemaul Undong

SMU, which started as a national agenda to solve structural problem of rural poverty in 1970, focused
on improving the spatial structure in rural areas at the initial stage. Improving the spatial structure is
highly visible so it can be a good stimulator to facilitate rural villagers’ attitude change. But this was
an antecedent condition to form the space-centered community, not the end result of SMU. But
inducing the attitude change through improving highly visible spatial structures contributed to
strengthening the villagers’ capacity that was essential for community development. SMU was unique
in that it strengthened the community awareness among the villagers and used it to combine
endogenous and exogenous factors. This is the main difference between SMU and other Western
community development practices.
Before applying any means to bring about change, there has to be a facts-check first as to
where it will be applied. Different situations require the scope of application to be reduced.
Dependency theory, which appeared from the mid 1950s, was the first attempt that questioned the
applicability of Western experiences in the field of development studies. SMU has a commonality
with dependency theory in that it too is not based on the Western experiences. The dependency theory
ends with criticizing the Western theories that could not deliver the desired outcome. But it did not
offer any realistic alternative. But SMU did.
With the village as a basic unit of common projects, SMU was ideal for the villagers to
identify their common problems, find common interests and bring about the desired changes based on
those common interests. In the 1970s, Korean rural communities already had conditions ripe to
accommodate changes during tumultuous period. Korean traditional institutions of mutual help
amongst people at village level—Doore, Haynagak, Gye, etc.—also contributed to triggering the
needs to bring about changes, with the village as a unit of such change. During the early stags of SMU,
it was not political mobilization, but the pursuit of common interests per village that enabled new
awareness about that community development and the new methodology for community management.
SMU also helped the old clan-based, blood-tied villages changed into space-based, communal
communities(SO, Jin Kwang, 2000: 10).
At the beginning, SMU aimed to get rid of poverty in the rural communities. Particularly it
reinforced villagers’ capacity through their active participation, and the reinforced capacity of
villagers, in turn, produced innovations and a spirit of further challenge. These innovations and
challenges fueled the evolution of SMU as they were being adapted to meet the needs of particular
villages. Where there was a challenge of extreme poverty, SMU responded by forming an economic
community. It formed the environmental community to improve the physical living conditions as a
means to sensitize the community awareness. Thus, it evolved by adding yet another sense of
community.
As the 1980s unfolded, SMU evolved by adding yet a new form of social community as
many kinds of social problems emerged. Based on this new community formation, SMU supported
Korea’s successful hosting of Asian Games in 1986 and the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988.
In the 1990s, people started to get interested in improving their ‘quality of life’ while demand
for cultural aspects of life skyrocketed. Responding to this challenge, SMU formed a sense of cultural
community to enhance the cultural equality among the village people and to bring high-cultures home.
Thus SMU enhanced village people’s accessibility to high quality cultural welfare.
SMU experiences began to spread to other developing countries in the 21st Century as the
international community showed a keen interest in Korea’s economic growth. SMU experiences of
Korea started to be reevaluated in terms of ‘governance’, ‘social capital’, and ‘sustainability’, which
are key elements of the new paradigms in the field of community development in the 21st Century.
Since 1973, SMU experiences have been shared with foreign leaders. Since then, about 60,000
foreign global leaders and government officials from 147 countries have been trained at the Korea
Saemaul Undong Center as of October 2016. To answer these calls from the international community,
SMU is currently evolving to form global communities.
 <Figure 3> The evolution of Saemaul Undong

5. SMU for inclusive growth by building various value chains

Academic debates about ‘inclusive growth’ are getting more practical concerns in the 21st Century.
The AfDB (2012) defines ‘Inclusive Growth (IG, thereafter)’ as “economic growth that results in
wider access to sustainable socio-economic opportunities for a broader number of people, regions or
countries, while protecting the vulnerable, all being done in an environment of fairness, equal justice,
and political plurality”. The AfDB (2012) again insists “IG analysis takes into account parameters
such as : age, gender, regional or geographical gaps and balances as well as sectoral differences and
balances.”
USAID (2014) defines IG as “economic growth that reduces poverty”, and regards IG as
“incorporating low-income households and individuals into growing economies and market systems”.
USAID(2014) again asserts “By integrating large number of small-scale agricultural producers into
competitive ‘Value Chains’, -------a successful smallholder-led strategy for inclusive growth can
support a structural transformation of the agricultural sector.” The OECD (www.oecd.org/inclusive-
growth/, 2017-03-14) defines IG as “economic growth that creates opportunity for all segments of the
population and distributes the dividends of increased prosperity, both in monetary and non-monetary
terms, fairly across society”. The OECD again maintains “IG is multidimensional, going beyond
income, and that the proceeds of economic growth must be shared.” This means IG is related to some
value chains covering all human life spectra.
In brief, IG can be defined as raising ‘Quality of Life’ by cultivating and maintaining
‘various value chains’, where all the stakeholders can participate and benefit fairly. The value chain is
based on assembling economic activities from production to consumption via processing of goods and
services. In any case, IG can be achieved by operating a “inclusive society”. Therefore, how to
cultivate an ‘inclusive society’ will be very important to achieve ‘inclusive growth’. ‘Inclusive
Society’ very often refers to ‘Social Inclusion’. UNDESA (2007) defines ‘social inclusion’ as “the
process by which efforts are made to ensure equal opportunities that everyone, regardless of their
background, can achieve their full potential in life.” Such efforts include policies and actions that
promote equal access to (public) services and enable citizen’s participation in the decision-making
processes affecting their lives. The Expert Group of UNDESA (2007) concluded that “a sense of
belonging, sense of community, or interconnectedness, may be a better word to describe an inclusive
society”.
 The goal of an inclusive society can be viewed as raising people’s ‘Quality of Life’ by
realizing gender equality, by maintaining regional balance, by keeping sectoral balance, by creating
proper role sharing among various age groups, by reducing the income gap among classes, and by
providing equal opportunities open to all the stakeholders depending on their capabilities. This goal
can be realized by chaining co-related activities into ‘a mainstream-lined assembly shop’. Chaining or
housing co-related activities into one shop can maximize ‘value added’ as a whole, from agro-
production to final consumption via agro-processing. This practice used to be called a ‘value chain’.

1) The Mechanism of Inclusive Society

An inclusive society can be operated by establishing various ‘value chains’. Value chains can be built
by connecting or involving various sectors, regions, sexes, age groups; by making opportunities open
and available to all the stakeholders; and by distributing the outcomes that all the participants
achieved fairly. Means of ‘Inclusive Society’ used to refer to building ‘good governance’,
accumulating social capital, and to practicing sustainability for each sector in the economic,
environmental, social, and cultural context. And these elements of the ‘Value Chain’ are geared
towards mobilizing internal and external resources, distributing the outcomes fairly by providing
equal opportunities open to all the stakeholders corresponding to their capabilities.
The value chains can work better by building ‘good governance’, by accumulating ‘social
capital’ in a community, and by practicing ‘sustainability’ for the next generations. The value chain is
based on ‘the commonality’ available to all the participants. To make the ‘Value Chain’ work better,
all the participants or stakeholders should be able to identify their own problems by themselves, to set
up their common goals for themselves, to form alternatives to the common goal of themselves, to
choose the best one by themselves, to mobilize the funds or resources needed to practice what they
decide to do, and to implement their own project by themselves, to monitor all the processes of the
‘Value Chain’ for themselves, to evaluate their own outcomes or outputs by themselves, and finally to
feedback the evaluation results to the next phase.

2) The ‘Value Chain’ by SMU for inclusive growth.

SMU built various value chains by realizing gender equality, opening the closed locality at village
level and transforming a blood-tied society into the community-based one. Ultimately, SMU
connected some villages into a bigger community. For instance, SMU chained all the sectors in
multidimensions, ranging from production to marketing via processing of agro products. In this way,
SMU provided fair opportunities to all stakeholders including age groups and classes. Also, SMU
operated incentive systems, rewarding the better achieved, thereby promoting ‘fair competition’
among villages and people. Village people tried to do their best to get more incentives from
government. In this way, SMU has been evolving through ‘a circulation-causation process’ for
inclusive growth, thereby connecting the past with the future via the present.
Korea’s Industrialization, which began in 1962, was increasing the gap between urban and
rural areas. This economic gap was one of the obstacles for Korea’s central government to concentrate
on ‘Industrialization Policy’ continuously. In response to this problem, the Korean government
launched SMU for revitalizing the rural economy. Then, SMU actually reduced the gap. <Figure 4>
shows how SMU reduced the gap in household incomes between rual and urban areas by building and
operating ‘Value Chains’ to connect agricultural activities with manufacturing industries, thereby
returning more value added to each participant in this value chain. From the mid 1970s, ‘agro-
products processing factories’ began to be built around rural areas, and those factories contributed to
establishing ‘Value Chains’ in rural areas from agro-producing to marketing via agro-product
processing.

(1,000 Won)
 2,000 1,884

1,800
1,600 1,433 1,734
1,400
1,156
1,200
873 1,271
1,000
674 1,059
800
457 485 786
600 400
296 338
400 218 255 573
429 481
200 356
218 256
0 149 179
1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978

Farm household income Urban household income

Source : Statistics Korea(www.kosis.kr)

<Figure 4> The gap between urban and rural areas in terms of household income.

SMU again contributed to realizing gender equality in Korea through proper role sharing
between female and male leaders for implementing SMU projects. The proportion of female leaders to
the total SMU leaders has been increasing ever since the 1970s. Before SMU, women would not get
out of their house works in Korea. However, SMU began to provide equal opportunities for women in
the public sphere out of the home. Through SMU, women became more active and empowered
participants for the public projects at village level. <Figure 5> shows the annual proportion of female
SMU leaders to the total SMU leaders. This shows that SMU contributed to realizing gender equality
in Korea. Because Saemaul Undong began to innovate in daily life styles at village level, there might
be more chances for women to play important roles in SMU.
100.0%
82.1% 82.0% 82.2%
79.0% 77.4% 77.0% 77.7%
80.0% 70.6%
61.0%
60.0%

40.0%

39.0%
20.0% 29.4%
21.0% 22.6% 23.0% 22.3%
17.9% 18.0% 17.8%
0.0%
1979 1985 1990 1996 2000 2005 2010 2015 2016

Male leaders Female leaders

Source : Korea Saemaul Undong Center

<Figure 5> The proportion of Female SMU leaders to the total SMU leaders by year

Due to the success of rural SMU, the SMU approach began to be applied in urban areas, in
factories, in offices and even in schools from 1974. Factory SMU focused on improving the quality of
products, raising productivity and creating harmonious industrial and labour relations. Workers, group
by group, began to discuss how to reduce the defect ratio of their products and how to make their
business more efficient. Because workers identified their own problems at their workplaces by
themselves and determined the solutions to their problems, all the workers became more committed
for their jobs.

(1,000USD)
600,000,000

526,756,503
500,000,000
466,383,762

400,000,000

300,000,000
284,418,743

200,000,000
172,267,510
125,057,988
100,000,000
5,081,016
175,082 17,504,862 65,015,731
24,595 32,827 835,185
30,283,122
0
1956 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Source : stat.kita.net
<Figure 6> The growth of Korean export by year

The owners of the factories, in turn, started to return some part of those profits raised by the
‘Factory SMU’ to better performing workers, and thereby expanding welfare policy for industrial
workers. This process of the Factory SMU has been a driver behind the rapid growth of Korean export
volumes. It is the fundamental reason that SMU contributed to the miracle, if any, economic growth
of Korea. <Figure 6> shows the annual growth of Korean export as Factory SMU has proceeded to
the contemporary Korea.
<Figure 4>, <Figure 5> and <Figure 6> demonstrate that ‘Value Chain’ through SMU,
enlarged the economic spectra from agro-production to agro-marketing and established agro-
processing as an engine of economic growth. This value chain also cultivates and maintains ‘Inclusive
Society’ , which is open to competent human resources. ‘Inclusive Society’ requires good quality
education, which was part of SMU’s focus on training and educating SMU leaders. ‘Value Chain’
through SMU magnified multiplier effects on economic outputs. It produced and distributed more and
better economic shares to all participants than what individuals might have achieved.

6. Concluding remark.

Saemaul Undong, which has been implemented in Korea since 1970, is meeting three core tasks of
human civilization: building ‘governance’, accumulating ‘social capital’, and practicing
‘sustainability’. It created ‘a process of reproduction for expanding’ by strengthening villagers’
capacity from the decision-making process on.
Those who are not diligent cannot be asked to bear social responsibilities, and an un-
cooperative person can neither head a community nor lead a group. Those who are not self-helping
cannot deserve a justified reason for their existence either as an individual, a group, or an organization.
In other words, ‘self-help’ is a necessary virtue for recognition of each other in relationships among
individuals, groups, and individuals vis-à-vis groups.
Hence diligence, self-help and cooperation are essential elements to derive peace and
prosperity of mankind in any circumstances through all the times in human society. On the base of the
triad spirits, SMU has been evolving by innovating in our daily lives, and by challenging the future. In
this vein, the SMU approach has a track record that is at once reasonable and practical to achieve
three key words that can explain human development in the 21st Century—‘governance’, ‘social
capital’, and ‘sustainability’. SMU was not only confined to community development for rural areas.
It expanded to urban areas, work places, factories, and schools, contributing to the recovery of
respective community’s integrity. These communities, in turn, provided the engine for innovation in
different fields such as economy, environment, society, and culture. They also contributed to
streamlining the modus operandi of society at large.
The SMU approach is effective and relevant to create ‘a circular causation mechanism in each sector
while adjusting to new environments, and to explore new possibilities while responding to new
challenges. In addition, SMU focuses on building ‘various Value Chains’ by widening the economic
spectrum from agro-production to agro-marketing via agro-processing. SMU also cultivates ‘Inclusive
Society’ for ‘Inclusive Growth’ by connecting all sectors, by keeping spatial balances between urban
and rural areas, by realizing gender equality and by involving all the stakeholders for their co-
prosperity. The SMU spirit of diligence, self-help and cooperation, is not limited to a specific era and
spatial conditions, but applicable to all human society as an universal virtue in any situation at any
time.

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