Gangdong-gu Achieves Highest Grade in 2020 Innovation Evaluation

Labor Rights Center Receives Top Scores as a Hopeful Space for Workers Exhausted by COVID Era... Secures Quantitative and Qualitative Growth Momentum through Visible Achievements of Innovative Policies

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Gangdong-gu (Mayor Lee Jeong-hoon) received the highest (excellent) rating in the ‘2020 Local Government Innovation Evaluation’ conducted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

The ‘Local Government Innovation Evaluation’ is a competition in which the Ministry of the Interior and Safety comprehensively evaluates the efforts and achievements of regional innovation across all 243 local governments (17 metropolitan, 226 basic) in Korea.

It assesses 12 indicators across five areas: ▲Institutional Autonomous Innovation ▲Inclusive Administration ▲Participation and Cooperation ▲Trusted Government ▲Innovation Diffusion and Public Perception.

This year, to ensure fairness and objectivity in the evaluation, both an ‘Expert Evaluation Panel’ and a ‘Public Evaluation Panel’ conducted the assessments.

The evaluation results are categorized into three grades?excellent, average, and insufficient?by summing innovation performance scores for each indicator. Among the 226 basic local governments nationwide, only 58 were selected as excellent institutions, qualifying them for financial incentives such as special grants and government awards.

Gangdong-gu was selected as an excellent institution with the highest grade in the ‘Local Government Innovation Evaluation’ just two years after the launch of the 7th elected administration, reflecting that the mayor’s innovation policies have produced visible results.

In particular, the Labor Rights Center and Mobile Worker Support Center, both directly operated by the district and the first of their kind nationwide, received high praise from the expert evaluation panel, earning top scores by providing rest areas and proactive, integrated services such as legal and financial support to mobile workers like delivery workers who have become more vulnerable due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the field of inclusive administrative innovation, Gangdong-gu received positive evaluations for COVID-19 response cases such as the installation of on-site screening clinics, which were covered by the UK’s national broadcaster BBC as a representative example of K-quarantine, and the nationwide first production of filter-replaceable cotton masks, as well as for its outreach health and welfare services.

Additionally, improvements in institutional integrity, provision of quality beneficiary service information, and the establishment of a foundation for proactive administration showed clear progress compared to the previous year’s indicators, demonstrating that Gangdong-gu is growing both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Lee Jeong-hoon, Mayor of Gangdong-gu, expressed his gratitude, saying, “I am thankful that our efforts with residents, despite the difficult circumstances caused by COVID-19, have borne fruit in the form of being selected as an excellent institution.” He added, “In 2021, we will do our best to ensure that residents can feel the changes and leaps forward through continuous innovative administration.”

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