What We Do
What We DoNews & Media
News & MediaAbout KOFIH
About KOFIHNew Year’s Message from the President Chang-yup Kim
I would like to wish a happy new year to all of you who have shown love and care for KOFIH, as well as our partners and employees. May you all stay health and find happiness in 2022. Although it has not been so long since I joined KOFIH last November, I would like to thank you for your interest, advice, hard work and achievements. In 2021, KOFIH celebrated the 15th anniversary since its establishment and conducted major projects based on local demands through nine overseas offices in Asia and Africa despite the difficulties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. I can speak with confidence that our major projects, including maternal and child health project, achieved great results and helped our partner countries strengthen their health systems. The fact that we were able to respond to an ‘unusual’ situation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, with flexibility is another great milestone we achieved. KOFIH took a major step forward in the area of international health cooperation, providing necessary medical supplies on time and creating a new training course on infectious disease control. In addition, we diligently carried our fundamental responsibilities in the face of an international health crisis, expanding the North Korean program and the foreign migrant program by switching the education courses to online courses, and building a remote medical examination and treatment system for residents in Arirang Nursing Home. Respected partners of KOFIH and our dear employees, many countries will continue to suffer from the spread of COVID-19 in 2022, and international cooperation will be suggested and demanded as part of the solution to end the pandemic. In addition to this, the movement that seeks a new order in the ‘post-COVID-19’ world will become more active. In this process, I believe we will also face some challenges that require us to fulfill our role and responsibilities in redefining the principles of international healthcare cooperation, governance, and methodology. In particular, most countries will now demand a higher standard of communicable disease surveillance and response systems. We also need to expand and supplement the scope of our key mission and strategy ‘strengthening healthcare system’ to include the ability to sustain essential medical services in emergency situations. In this context, I would like to share the three directions that KOFIH will focus on this year. First, KOFIH will refocus all our projects, works, principles, and methods to correspond to ‘COVID-19’ and the ‘post-COVID-19’ era, supplementing and developing these areas. As we expect our partner countries to bring up new tasks, such as infectious disease control, and demand us to improve the existing projects in this light, we are going to work closely with our partner countries and do our best to fulfill the original goals and values of our cooperation no matter what changes we face. Second, KOFIH will strengthen our role of communicating, interacting, and discussing with various ‘agents’ of international healthcare. As the World Health Organization (WHO) started a discussion on the establishment of the ‘pandemic treaty,’ 2022 will become a ‘historic’ year when various international organizations, governments, private entities and civic societies come together to search for a new international healthcare governance system. KOFIH will also work together with the South Korean government, private entities and civic societies to facilitate an active discussion of the topic in the South Korean society. We will also reinforce our exchange and cooperation with various international organizations and institutions. Third, KOFIH will spare no effort to improve our capabilities and expertise. Internally, we are going to promote mutual learning while encouraging systematic use of various knowledge resources externally. We are going to develop creative and accountable work processes and functions that best reflect the unique characteristics of KOFIH, and develop a structure and system based on them. We will also continue to reinvent ourselves to perform our projects effectively and efficiently, following democratic principles and procedures. Mid-December last year, KOFIH relocated the office to the newly built Health and Welfare Administration Town located in Junggok-dong. With the foundation''s 15 years of experience, I hope to see KOFIH take a leap forward in 2022 with a new state of mind in a new space. I wish our partners and employees a year of taking a great leap forward like a tiger. May you all have a year full of health, happiness, and a sense of fulfillment. Thank you. President of KOFIH Chang-yup Kim, MD, PhD MPH