United Nations Multilateral Development Assistance And The Northeast Asia Sub-regional Cooperation

As one of the most important activities in international economic cooperation, international multilateral development assistance is the specific help given by global or regional donors, including international or regional organizations and institutions, to help developing countries and regions develop themselves and improve social welfares. In these organizations and institutions, the United Nations with its system is obviously the largest and most important donor. The paper briefly introduces the concept of multilateral development assistance, trying to clarify the development assistance framework of the United Nations System theoretically.The Greater Tumen Region (GTR), situated at the crossroads of trade and transport routes between Europe, Northeast Asia and Northern America, provides a perfect location for transit trade and offers a great potential for various industries. The Tumen Region cooperation can not only cast off the backwardness of the remote areas in Northeast Asia, but also promote deeper economic cooperation, as well as regional integration. This paper analyzes the history and mechanisms that the United Nations involved in the process of NEA sub-regional cooperation development.Nearly twenty-year development, the Tumen Region has created an economic network that links resource-rich areas with global economy and is now widely recognized as a frontier for economic cooperation in Northeast Asia, yet a few problems existed, such as developing model, coordinating system as well as capital etc., which restrict the further development of regional cooperation. This paper suggests that learning from the experience of the United Nations assistance model, Tumen Region cooperation should change loose cooperation model and make full use of multilateral development assistance, with participation and support from all the key actors, including the governments, the private sector and the general public. It is convinced that, with the joint efforts of all parties, Tumen River Area and the whole NEA region will achieve common development and common prosperity.