New Community Movement - Overview

Overview

The movement promoted self-help and collaboration among the people, as the central government provided a fixed amount of raw materials to each of the participating villages free of charge and entrusted the locals to build whatever they wished with them. The government first selected 33,267 villages and provided 335 sacks of cement. 16,600 villages that demonstrated success were then granted additional resources of 500 sacks of cement and a ton of iron bars.

The New Community Movement did much to improve infrastructure in rural South Korea, bringing modernized facilities such as irrigation systems, bridges and roads in rural communities. The program also marked the widespread appearance of orange tiled houses throughout the countryside, replacing the traditional thatched or choga-jip houses. Encouraged by the success in the rural areas, the movement spread through factories and urban areas as well, and became a nation-wide modernization movement. However, the movement proved ultimately inadequate in addressing the larger problem of migration from the villages to cities by the country's younger demographic. Moreover, relatively low income in the rural area compared to the urban area became a major political issue in the late 1980s, one that no government intervention had been able to fully solve. Although the Saemaul Movement has achieved a great success in reducing poverty and improving living conditions in rural areas, rapid industralization of South Korea changed the environment and diminished the momentum of the movement. The government-led movement with highly centralized organizations proved to be efficient in 1970s and early 80s, but it became less effective after Korea entered into more developed and industrialized stage. Also, the government-led centralized system brought corruption problems such as misuse of funding. Recognizing these problems, the Korean government changed the centralized structure of the movement by empowering civil society to lead the movement. Since 1998, the Saemaul Movement has entered into the second phase, focusing on new issues such as enhancing voluntary services in the community and international cooperation with developing countries.