Increasing Public Participation in Government and Local Government Policy and Budget Decisions

Ministry of the Interior and Safety Establishes and Announces 'Plan to Promote Public Participation'

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] From now on, any citizen will be able to check government-led public participation policies online and easily participate in the policies they want.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 18th the "Plan to Promote Public Participation Activation," with the vision of realizing a "nation where participation becomes a daily habit and proposals become policies."

First, a system called "Policy List Pre-Announcement," which publicly discloses the list of policies scheduled for public participation by government agencies online in an integrated manner, will be promoted.

Citizens will be able to check the public participation policies for one year led by each agency on the online participation platform "Gwanghwamun 1st Street (www.gwanghwamoon1st.go.kr)" and each agency's homepage, and participate in the policies they want.

Furthermore, after the pre-announced policies are implemented, the results will also be transparently disclosed online to ensure accountability in the operation of the participation system.

Gwanghwamun 1st Street, which was launched as a policy proposal window for public participation and communication, will serve as a hub for government-wide public participation by linking with participation windows of central and local governments.

Until now, public proposals that required a large budget were often not adopted, but going forward, Gwanghwamun 1st Street will link such proposals to the Public Participation Budget Portal to review their reflection in policies.

On Gwanghwamun 1st Street, users can view the proposal contents and processing status of all linked participation windows, as well as easily check various participation schedules and excellent participation cases of central and local governments.

The "Challenge Korea" project, where citizens propose solutions to complex social problems and current issues, will also be promoted through Gwanghwamun 1st Street. This is an innovative proposal project in which citizens prepare solutions to complex social problems through collective intelligence, and outstanding proposals selected through contests will receive rewards of up to 50 million KRW.

In addition, the government plans to expand the scope of citizen participation throughout the entire policy process, not only in major policy decisions such as budget and organization but also by introducing or increasing the proportion of public participation in the evaluation stages of policy outcomes, such as government innovation evaluations or selection of excellent policies, which have so far been expert-centered.

Also, a "Proposal Policy Real-Name System" will be introduced, posting the names and achievements of excellent proposers on Gwanghwamun 1st Street, and practical incentives will be strengthened, such as recommending and selecting public officials who directly contributed to reflecting proposals in policies as "Outstanding Public Officials for Active Administration."

Yoon Jong-in, Vice Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said, "This plan will further strengthen the foundation for activating participation," and added, "We will continue to discover participation content that is 'themed and interesting' so that citizens can enjoy participating in policies in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.