Yeongdeok Governor Kim Kwangyeol Wins Excellence Award at National Manifesto Best Practices Competition for Third Consecutive Year

'Returning Youth to Hwan-Yeonghae Village Project' Recognized Nationwide

Yeongdeok County in North Gyeongsang Province received the Excellence Award for its "Returning Youth to Hwan-Yeonghae Village Project (Yeonghae-myeon Neighbor Village Expansion Project)" at the "2025 National Best Practices Competition for Local Government Heads," held at the Andong Campus of Kyungpook National University from July 23 to 24.

Kim Kwangyeol, the mayor of Yeongdeok County, won the national basic local government heads manifesto excellence case competition for three consecutive years in 2025. Photo by Yeongdeok County

This competition, now in its fifteenth year, is hosted annually by the Korea Manifesto Implementation Headquarters (Secretary General Lee Kwangjae) to discover outstanding pledges and policy cases in local government administration from cities, counties, and districts nationwide, and to encourage the sharing and promotion of these policies among local governments.

This year, the competition received 401 entries from 159 local governments across seven categories: economic and regional industry support, inequality reduction, response to demographic changes, safety and disaster management, climate, environment and ecology, social capital, and community strengthening. Of these, 191 cases passed the first round of document screening, and the best practices were selected after a second round of on-site presentations on July 24.

The evaluation was conducted in two stages by the Manifesto Evaluation Group, which consists of experts from academia, civil society, and local government. The first stage was a document review worth 70 points (suitability, creativity, communication, scalability, and perceived impact), and the second stage was an on-site presentation worth 30 points (presentation skills, preparation, audience response, etc.), with scores combined for the final assessment.

Yeongdeok County’s "Returning Youth to Hwan-Yeonghae Village Project (Yeonghae-myeon Neighbor Village Expansion Project)" received the Excellence Award in the category of response to demographic changes.

This project aims to overcome the crisis of local extinction and encourage the influx of the younger generation, creating a sustainable community. It is being implemented organically through 15 detailed initiatives in five major areas: jobs, housing, living environment, community, and youth influx. These include the Startup Hub Center, the Intergenerational Support Center, and youth entrepreneurship support.

County Governor Kim Kwangyeol stated, "Winning the award for three consecutive years is evidence that our policies, developed together with the residents, are creating positive change," and added, "We will continue to do our best to implement county administration that residents can truly feel."

Yeongdeok County received the Grand Prize in 2023 for "Yeongdeok BLUE's, the Cultural Station of Connection," and the Excellence Award in 2024 for "On-site Civil Complaint Response Team! Deogi Captain."