Gwangju City Confirms Five Key Focus Areas for Administrative Innovation This Year

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 23rd that it has finalized the ‘2020 Gwangju Innovation Implementation Plan’ for tangible changes that citizens can feel, based on advice from the Public-Private Innovation Council.

The core values of this year’s Gwangju Innovation Implementation Plan focus on aligning the level of citizen participation and cooperation with citizens’ perspectives, boldly transforming public services and working methods to be digitally centered, and operating city administration in a fair and transparent manner that citizens trust.

To this end, this year, the city will actively promote five major areas, 12 tasks, and 156 projects to produce innovation achievements in city administration that citizens can experience as definite changes, including participation and cooperation, services, working methods, and COVID-19 response.

The main contents include, first, significantly expanding citizen participation in city administration through on-site, citizen- and company-involved regulatory innovation to solve social problems, citizen participation in delinquent tax collection teams, participatory budgeting systems, a 500-member city innovation participation group, and fostering social innovation business models.

Second, to expand the autonomy of civil society and strengthen exchanges for public-private cooperation, the city supports citizens to solve local problems on their own through the citizen-led Gwangju Social Innovation Platform, Village Dispute Resolution Center, apartment volunteer groups, and expanded public data disclosure and utilization.

Third, to innovate public services that citizens can feel, the city integrates community-centered social services such as community care and proactively applies digital technologies to public services, including Mobile Gwangju and the Todak Todak Youth Job Cafe.

Fourth, based on digital innovation capabilities, to build a trusted Gwangju city administration, the city introduces a pre-consultation system and activates proactive administration by strengthening incentive systems such as performance bonus points so that public officials who perform well receive appropriate treatment.

Additionally, simple and repetitive tasks such as business trip expense settlements will be automated (RPA - Robotic Process Automation), and smart administration will be strengthened by expanding the introduction of mobile devices to reinforce on-site administration.

Fifth, to respond to COVID-19, the city plans to establish a thorough quarantine system and transform the overall city administration into an innovative citizen-centered administrative and financial support system, including measures to stabilize the citizen economy, to overcome the local economic difficulties caused by COVID-19 at an early stage.

In particular, this year, five projects with high citizen demand and awareness have been designated as Gwangju city’s innovation brand projects and will be actively promoted: creating an AI-centered city Gwangju, establishing the Gwangju Global Motors automobile factory, making Gwangju a good place to have and raise children, designating Jangnok Wetland as a national wetland protection area, and the Gwangju Station area urban regeneration New Deal project.

To ensure the implementation of these innovation plans, a ‘City Administration Innovation TF’ has been formed to separately manage 24 key tasks with high citizen awareness and priority, regularly and occasionally checking the progress.

Furthermore, to encourage active interest and participation of city officials in administrative innovation, incentives such as performance bonus points, overseas training, and commendations have been greatly expanded so that officials who achieve results receive tangible benefits.

Kim Jong-hyo, Deputy Mayor for Administration, said, “This year is the third year of the 7th elected administration, and we must produce definite results so that citizens can feel the achievements of administrative innovation in their daily lives. We will ensure that citizens trust the city administration and that the innovation increases citizen convenience.”