Seongbuk-gu Wins Excellence Award at Manifesto Best Practice Competition
Selected as an outstanding policy case with 'Enjoying Seongbuk. Cultural Diversity. Seongbuk World Food Festival Nurimasil'
Seongbuk World Food Festival Nurimasil attracted 50,000 visitors in just one day, establishing itself as a global festival with 5,000 foreign tourists attending
District Mayor Lee Seung-ro: “Seongbuk-gu’s unique cultural governance, which supports without interference, has created the current Seongbuk World Food Festival Nurimasil”
Seongbuk-gu (Mayor Lee Seung-ro) received the Excellence Award in the regional culture revitalization category at the '2023 National Basic Local Government Heads Manifesto Best Practice Competition' held on the 27th at Suncheon National University, hosted by the Korea Manifesto Practice Headquarters and Jeonnam Research Institute.
The Manifesto Best Practice Competition, a platform for discovering, sharing, learning, and spreading excellent pledges and policy cases from cities, counties, and districts nationwide, received a total of 364 cases from 155 out of 226 basic local governments across the country. After the first document screening, 172 cases were selected to compete in the main event.
The policy case for which Seongbuk-gu won the Excellence Award, 'Seongbuk World Food Festival Nurimasil,' actively utilizes the tangible and intangible cultural assets of Seongbuk-dong, known as the "roofless museum," where 41 embassies are located, creating a cultural diversity festival where the village and the world coexist through food.
Although South Korea is known as the "country of festivals," with numerous festivals held nationwide, most are simple events unrelated to the local community. In contrast, the 'Seongbuk World Food Festival Nurimasil' fosters strong ties with the local community by ensuring residents are not just spectators but active participants through pre-festival local festival schools, resident-led festivals, cultural diversity flag-making, and resident participation parades.
The rich program was also a highlight. Eighteen embassies participated, showcasing their traditional foods, while about 40 local shops and cultural arts groups in Seongbuk-gu operated food booths, and over 35 experiential events and flea markets were held.
As a result, despite being a one-day event on May 23, the 'World Food Festival Nurimasil' attracted 50,000 visitors, including approximately 5,000 foreigners, earning recognition as a truly global festival.
Notably, the 'Seongbuk World Food Festival Nurimasil' is also famous as an eco-friendly festival. All participating booths sold food using reusable containers, encouraging visitors to return containers and separate waste, making it a zero single-use item eco-friendly festival. Although this might have been somewhat inconvenient, visitors understood the festival’s purpose and willingly made the effort, according to reports.
Mayor Lee Seung-ro of Seongbuk-gu commented, “Seongbuk-gu’s unique cultural governance, which clearly divides the roles of public and private sectors with the principle of supporting without interference, seems to have created the current World Food Festival Nurimasil,” adding with a joyful smile, “I am especially pleased because the manifesto is an evaluation related to promises made to residents.”
Seongbuk-gu has already won the Grand Prize in 2019 and 2020 at the Manifesto Best Practice Competition and received the highest grade SA in the 2023 pledge implementation information disclosure evaluation, earning the nickname of a regular visitor at the Korea Manifesto Practice Headquarters.
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