Seoul Citizens' Collective Intelligence Selects Top 10 'Post-Corona' Policies

On the 19th at 2 PM, Online and Offline Citizen Assembly Concluding 100 Days of 'Seoul Siminhoe'
Vote on Policy Proposals Derived from 9 Deliberations and Public Discussions ... Final Plan Delivered to Seoul City

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The '2020 Seoul Citizens' Assembly,' conducted to predict the era of great transformation triggered by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and to prepare a new Seoul through collective citizen intelligence, has selected the top 10 policies that should be prioritized for implementation.

On the 17th, Seoul City announced that it will hold a citizens' general assembly simultaneously online and offline at 2 p.m. on the 19th in the multipurpose hall of City Hall.

Starting with the selection of citizen committee members in May, the 2020 Seoul Citizens' Assembly is a new model of citizen democracy where citizens not only provide opinions but also lead proposals, deliberations, and public discussions to decide policies themselves. A total of 3,000 citizen committee members went through nine rounds of deliberation and public discussion from June, producing 117 extensive policy proposals across 27 fields including quarantine, economy, care, environment, and human rights. Among these, 30 policy proposals were shortlisted focusing on feasibility.

Seoul City explained that despite the restrictions on gatherings due to COVID-19, they minimized the number of participants in on-site discussions and combined them with online discussions using Zoom to conduct safe hybrid citizen discussions. Additionally, all meeting processes were broadcast live on YouTube, allowing even those not participating in the discussions to watch the deliberation and public discussion process and provide opinions via comments.

At the citizens' general assembly on the 19th, the final 10 policies will be selected through comprehensive discussions and voting on the 30 policy proposals. The discussions, involving a total of 340 participants both online and offline, will be divided into two parts: 'Policy Preference Discussion,' which gauges policy preferences on COVID-19 vaccine priority and emergency disaster relief payments, and 'Priority Decision Discussion,' which debates and decides policies on topics closely related to citizens' daily lives such as care and environment.

Following the comprehensive discussions, a final on-site citizen vote will be conducted. The results, combined with prior mobile voting conducted among all citizen committee members, will determine the final 10 policies to be delivered to Seoul City under the name of the Seoul Citizens' Assembly.

Seoul City plans to actively reflect these policy proposals in city administration through cooperation among various offices, headquarters, and bureaus, and to continuously disclose the policy implementation process to the citizen committee members.

Seo Jeong-hyeop, Acting Mayor of Seoul, stated, "The Seoul Citizens' Assembly has proven that democratic citizens are the most certain vaccine to lead the sustainable post-COVID era," and promised, "We will faithfully reflect the choices of the citizen committee members in city administration to open the gateway to a new era of hope."

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