US President Barack Obama may not like the idea of a Free Trade Agreement with South Korea, but he is saying that Korea’s economy is one Africa should emulate:

During his candidacy period and after he was elected, U.S. President Barak Obama on several occasions mentioned South Korea as a model for other developing countries to learn from. Now he did it again.

In the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, where Africa and food security were the top agenda on the last day of the G8 Summit on Friday, Obama said African countries should learn from South Korea’s successful experience of developing economy, Hankook Ilbo reported Saturday.

When a reporter asked Obama whether his proposal of expanding food subsidies to poor countries has to do with the fact that he has relatives in the African country, Kenya, Obama responded: “In fact, Kenya was a more affluent country than South Korea when my father first came to the States to study (in 1950).”

“At that time, Kenya’s per capita GDP was higher than that of South Korea. But South Korea is now a developed and affluent country, while Kenya still remains in severe poverty.”

Obama said: “There is no reason African countries cannot do what South Korea did.”  [Korea Times]

Actually there are plenty of reasons why Africa cannot do what South Korea did with their economy as I said in this posting back in 2005 when then President George Bush said the same exact thing at that year’s G8 summit.

Here is a quick run down of reasons why Africa cannot emulate the economic success of South Korea:

• South Korea does not have tribal, ethnic, or religious turmoil as you see in many countries in Africa.
• US troops stationed in Korea has provided an economic boost to the economy for decades.
• US troops provide a security guarantee for people investing in Korea.
• The US gave favorable trading conditions and loans to Korea because of the interest the US had in seeing South Korea succeed during the Cold War.
  
• Korean’s cultural drive to pursue advanced education.
  
• Despite his faults, Park Chung-hee was a nationalist leader who was committed to providing the leadership to unite the country’s resources towards economic development.
• Here is the most important factor, the work ethic of Koreans.  Koreans worked as hard as anybody in history to build the nation they now have.  Are African countries willing to sacrifice and work the long hours that Koreans did to build their country?
  

The US provided plenty of conditions for success in South Korea, but it was ultimately up to South Koreans to do the hard work to take advantage of those conditions, which they did.  Modern Korea was literally built off the blood, sweat, and tears of many of those elderly Koreans you seeing walking around the country today.  The setting of conditions for success in Africa will be different from South Korea.  Personally I think ending the AIDS epidemic should be the top priority in Africa before economic development. No country will ever have a strong economy if their adult work force are dying off and leaving the next generation as orphans. Would Korea have achieved its economic development if 15% of their population was dying from AIDS 50 years ago?

The only major factors I see that Africa can learn from Korea is competent national leadership, valuing education, and hardwork.  This a recipe for economic success for any country in world, not just Africa.