Abstract
Desertification has been expanding with a remarkable speed across the Northeast Asia. Desertification in Northeast Asia significantly influences Korea's economy and environmental health conditions in recent years. For these reasons, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Korea have carried out the reforestation projects to combat desertification in China and Mongolia. Several tree plantation projects were implemented in Mongolia and China. The objective of this study was to analyze and evaluate the performance of tree plantation aid projects carried out by Korean NGOs in Mongolia. The performance of tree plantation projects was examined through effectiveness, efficiency, equity and responsiveness of those projects. The performance was analyzed with the survival rate of planted trees and planting cost, the recognitions of Mongolian people. The analysis of the performance showed that the tree plantation cooperation projects carried out by Korean NGOs in Mongolia had comparatively high performance from a larger point of view. Especially, effectiveness and responsiveness of their projects were highly marked in spite of all the difficulties of carrying out the tree plantation. Such a high effectiveness represented the relatively higher survival rates of trees and Mongolian's positive recognition of plantation projects. Furthermore, the responsiveness also turned out to be high with a great satisfaction of the Mongolian people for plantation projects conducted by the Korean NGOs. Survey results indicated that the efficiency and equity of the projects would be increased by promoting the cooperation projects for tree planting throughout Mongolia with reinforcing infrastructures. By comparison between Korean NGOs and Mongolian Government plantation projects, confirmed the importance of sustained financial support and maintenance activities in the plantation sites.