What Determines Korea’s Health Aid Allocation: Altruistic, Economic, or COVID-19 Motivations?

With the disproportionate impact of the global pandemic on developing countries, health aid has become crucial in improving people’s health and well-being more than ever. Reflecting developing countries’ needs, Korea, like other donors, made significant contributions to support the global COVID-19 response. Considering the increased amount and importance of the health sector in Korea’s foreign aid, this article aims to investigate the motivations of Korea’s total bilateral aid and bilateral health aid using panel data of 128 developing countries from 2006 to 2021 with the random-effects panel Tobit model. The time frame was divided into three periods, 2006–2009, 2010–2019 and 2020–2021, to test Korea’s aid determinants pre- and post-pandemic outbreak. No notable changes in Korea’s aid allocation pattern were found before and after the pandemic. Instead, Korea seemed to have mixed motives of donor interest and recipients’ needs in specific periods. However, a priority partner country was consistently identified as an influential factor in Korea’s aid.