Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan “on Friday signed an agreement to better coordinate international development aid during a meeting [in Washington] between the two countries’ top diplomats,” Agence France-Presse reports.  

The agreement “recognizes (South Korea’s) growing emergence as a donor country,” the State Department said in a statement, noting that it would “promote the impact and efficiency in aid delivery within mutually agreed priority areas such as global hunger and food security, maternal and children’s health, and climate change.”  

“The (memorandum of understanding) puts into place a meaningful partnership to expand the reach of development assistance and help encourage the shift from aid to sustained economic growth and prosperity,” the State Department said (6/24). Remarks from the meeting and a video are available on State’s website (6/24).