TaiwanICDF: Building Resilience Through Partnership for 30 Years

0:00Community is can become resilient only when the people, the local people are resilient. I'm Tim Berge, this week on Taiwan Talk, we take a look at the Taiwan International Cooperation Development Fund to discuss the organization's work around the world and its vision as it marks its 30th anniversary. We're very happy today to have with us PayFanShift, Deputy Secretary General of the Taiwan ICDF. Her career has spanned international affairs, national security and international organizations. She previously served at the Tuvalu's permanent mission to the United Nations and worked as a policy research associate at Taiwan's National Security Council. She holds graduate degrees in public policy and law from Harvard University and specializes in international relations, international law and human rights. PayFan, welcome to Taiwan Talk and let's start the conversation

1:00by talking a little bit about what you do and maybe to help the international listeners better understand Taiwan ICDF. I'm sure many of them probably they've heard the name before but they're not quite certain what you do. So maybe tell us a little bit about your core mission and the role that you play in Taiwan's international development cooperation. Sure, so Taiwan ICDF is Taiwan's official aid agency. So our mission is to work with our diplomatic allies and friendly countries to improve the people's lives and also support sustainable development. So we use our comparative advantages to meet the real needs of our partner countries including in agricultural, public health, ICT, SME development, environmental education. So there are quite a lot of priority areas of our work. So why is it important is that we don't only provide financial support. We have our technical missions underground to work with local communities. Currently we have 22 technical missions in 21

2:02countries. So that's really make us stand out as an official or the aid agency. Okay, doing so much, but still Taiwan is maybe kind of a little bit small compared to some other countries and other organizations. So how does Taiwan stand out? What is distinctive about your approach to providing this aid compared to other international groups? Well, actually, I would say Taiwan has a lot of practical experiences and expertise to share. So one of our unique strengths is that our own development experience. You know, Taiwan was a recipient of a foreign aid decays ago and over the past several decades, we have developed ourselves into a partner that provides development assistance to other countries. So we have a remarkable process of economic and social development ourselves. So we understand what development means not from a theoretical perspective, but from our own experiences. And that's something we can share. And also, the second strength I would say we stress a lot on

3:03local engagement. And that's why we have our teams on the ground to work with the local communities. And this way we can have a better understanding of the local situations and we can find solutions that better suited the local contacts. So I would say although we are not a big country, the organization itself is not be either. We have a lot to share. Very good. And also recently you returned from S.W.A.T.E.N.E. or you visited and you also visited Paraguay. Yes. And from these visits and observing different things firsthand, which projects best demonstrate Taiwan's professional strengths and their tangible impact on local communities, as you just mentioned. Is there a particularly memorable story also that you can share with us? Yes, actually quite a lot. Oh, well, let's keep it to water too. Yes, okay, sounds good. So I had this opportunity to visit our diplomatic allocation in Paraguay and in S.W.A.T.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.S.W.A.T.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N.E.N What impressed me the most was seeing how Taiwan's expertise can actually make a difference

4:04in people's lives, like hundreds of thousands miles away from Taiwan. So in Paraguay, one project that really stood out to me was our health information system project. So what really impressed me was how practical the system is. So I visited two hospitals in the country. And in the hospital, you can see the information as displayed on the dashboard and as updated every five minutes. So the hospital management can see the situation and the whole hospital very clearly and up to date. And also at the government's level, I also visited the Ministry of Public Health. So you can also see data from across the country. So this is very impressive. You can imagine how this can be when a government needs to make decisions based on data. So now you don't need to call the hospitals one by one and wait for answers. You can just see the dashboard and you have the whole pictures nationwide.

5:06But what impressed me the most was that our project manager from the very beginning of this project 10 years ago, he worked alongside with the local communities, with the medical personnel, with the doctors, with the pharmacist, with the patients to develop this project, to develop the system. So this system was not exported from Taiwan and translated from the Chinese to Spanish. But that was locally grown. So that's why I think this project make a lot of difference in paraguay. And also in Espatini, I also see our impact in a different area. So we had this project on women's economic empowerment. And I met this woman. She gave birth to a baby girl and during this period when she participated in our project. And she named her baby girl Taiwan. How cute. How cute. Yeah, I made the mother and also Taiwan, the daughter.

6:09And because when you talk about women empowerment, people may, the first single of giving women a job. But that women economic empowerment is not simply about giving women access to employment or that monthly paycheck. I think that makes more. So our project was actually to give them access to micro long. So they can start their own business. But not only that, we also provide them with mentoring, with business support, with more network building. And I think that's also very important because once you support women, you not only support the individual, but you support the family, you support the children, you support a household. So I think that's something that really impressed me. Well, at least into my next question. So resilience is something you hear about a lot these days. And that's also a focus of your work. So what does resilience mean in practical terms and how are you helping communities in partner countries to become more resilient? And especially with climate change.

7:10This is growing more and more important. Right. Actually, we have a lot of work in this regard. So for us, I think resilience is very much about building people's capacity. Because I believe that communities can become resilient only when the people, the local people are resilient. Only when the local people have the knowledge, the skills and the resources to really deal with the challenges they face day to day and also to continue developing their own solutions. So that's very important. And for example, so in the Pacific, there's an area that's being impacted by the climate change quite a lot. So we work with the local partners to develop climate-resilient crops and vegetable production. So for us, we don't simply just feed the people. And we don't simply just provide the farmers with equipment or technologies, but we work with them to grow climate-resilient crops and vegetables and also introduce suitable agricultural techniques and build their knowledge so they can deal with different situations

8:15on their own. I think that's something that's very important. Finally, this is a very important year. It's a happy 30. It's not your 30, although it might be. Yeah, I'm only 30. I really think so. I really think so. Okay. This is the 30th anniversary of Taiwan ICDF. And so how has the organization evolved over these last three decades? And maybe what is your vision for the next 30 years, the next stage in the ICDF? Yep. I think that over the past 30 years, we have evolved in two ways. The first is what we do and the second is who we work with. So what we do before we work on as other ODA agencies do, we work on individual development projects. And many of them are successful. I think we have to give credit to them. But looking forward what we want to do is to move beyond the individual projects to a more comprehensive and long-term approach.

9:17Because you know, now all the problems are long-term problems. You cannot just deal with long-term problems with short-term solutions. So that's one thing very important is that we try to work with our partners on total solutions so that that's something we are trying to transform our thing to. And the second part is who we work with. So before we worked a lot in our diplomatic allies and friendly countries. And now we are trying to also work together with like-minded countries. Because today all the problems we deal with are interconnected. So we just cannot deal with it as a single-handedly. So we recognize the importance of working together and coordinating and just better using our resources which are limited. So that's also something we want to do is that we build more partnerships not only with the countries that we are already working in but also with the countries that are also

10:22working in those areas, say in those regions. So there's two areas that we are transforming into and I think there's two aspects that are very important to us. And I think that's an important tool in Taiwan's diplomatic outreach. Yes. Very good. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. It's been a very interesting conversation. I also I should have mentioned, we never mentioned this before, but it's Taiwan ICDF which is the Taiwan International Cooperation Development Fund. So that kind of tells you a little bit more about what your mission is. Thank you very much for joining us today. I'm Tim Berge. Thanks for listening to Taiwan Talk. You can listen to this and other episodes on your favorite podcast platform.