Jongno District Mayor Kim Young-jong Wins Multiple Presidential Awards, Secures 22.9 Billion KRW in Financial Incentives

Jongno-gu Secures Approximately 22.9 Billion KRW in Financial Incentives from External Evaluations and Competitions in 2020, Receives Presidential Award Twice... Ranked No.1 in the Capital Region for Two Consecutive Years in the Korea Standard Association's 'Administrative Service Quality Index Survey'... Honored with Presidential Awards at the 'Korea Crime Prevention Awards' and the 'Local Autonomy Management Competition'

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Jongno-gu (District Mayor Kim Young-jong) secured financial incentives amounting to approximately 22.9 billion KRW across 137 fields through external agency evaluations and competitions in 2020 (as of 2020.12.23), achieving multiple awards of the prestigious Presidential Award.

This year, despite the unprecedented adversity caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the district demonstrated administrative excellence through various remarkable achievements.

First, Jongno-gu ranked first among Seoul’s 25 autonomous districts in the 2020 Service Quality Index (KS-SQI) survey conducted by the Korea Standards Association.

The administrative service survey, in which Jongno-gu took first place for two consecutive years following last year, was conducted by the Korea Standards Association targeting a total of 47 local governments, including Seoul’s 25 autonomous districts, 16 cities in Gyeonggi Province with populations over 300,000, and 6 districts in Incheon Metropolitan City.

The results were obtained by surveying residents who had used administrative services in the area at least once in the past six months, focusing on aspects such as ‘whether the desired administrative service was provided,’ ‘fair handling of tasks,’ and ‘courteous response.’

As a result, the average service quality survey score among Seoul’s 25 autonomous districts was 68.7 points, with Jongno-gu receiving 71.5 points, the highest score among the districts, revealing that residents’ satisfaction with administrative services is the highest in Jongno-gu.

Moreover, in October, Jongno-gu was honored as the first autonomous district to receive the Presidential Award at the 5th Korea Crime Prevention Awards hosted by the National Police Agency. The ‘Korea Crime Prevention Awards’ is a prestigious award recognizing public institutions, companies, and social organizations that have demonstrated outstanding achievements in building safe communities in response to the increasing public demand for crime prevention.

In September, the district also received the Presidential Award at the 16th Korea Local Autonomy Management Competition based on the achievements of the Donu-dong Saetteul Village Project.

With consecutive awards and consistently excellent evaluations, Jongno-gu has been implementing the ‘Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) project’ targeting the Donu-dong shantytown area, which had long been stigmatized as a high-crime area isolated from the local community.

Since 2014, Jongno-gu has also attracted attention for winning the Korea Urban Awards for seven consecutive years, a record unmatched by any other local government nationwide. The Korea Urban Awards, hosted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, is a prestigious award that evaluates and honors basic local governments nationwide based on urban sustainability and the level of living infrastructure.

This year, Jongno-gu received the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Award for projects such as the ‘Donu-dong Saetteul Village Project,’ which improved the quality of life for residents in marginalized shantytown areas; operating the ‘Hanok Demolition Material Recycling Bank,’ which promotes the value of traditional Korean Hanok architecture and contributes to its dissemination; and creating the new concept playground ‘Changsin-dong Sanmaru Playground’ for local residents and children.

Furthermore, Jongno-gu ranked first nationwide in the National Happiness Index, which comprehensively evaluates eight areas related to residents’ happiness, including health, safety, environment, economy, education, and life satisfaction, conducted by Statistics Korea. It is reported that Jongno-gu received particularly high scores in health, safety, and economic areas. The district also won the grand prize in the ‘2018 Korea Local Government Happiness Index Evaluation’ conducted by Yeouido Research Institute.

Additionally, according to the 2020 Public Institution Integrity Measurement by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, Jongno-gu improved by two grades from the previous year, receiving an overall grade of 2. Considering that no autonomous district nationwide received a comprehensive grade 1, this effectively places Jongno-gu in the highest integrity tier.

This year’s evaluation was conducted on a total of 580 public institutions, with Jongno-gu’s overall integrity score rising by 0.67 points from the previous year to 8.54 points. This score is 0.23 points higher than the average of 8.31 points for autonomous districts nationwide and 0.27 points higher than the overall average of 8.27 points for all institutions.

Jongno-gu had previously received a comprehensive integrity grade 2 in the 2018 evaluation but dropped to grade 4 last year. Since then, the district has devoted full efforts to improving integrity throughout this year. As a result, it achieved the remarkable feat of rising two grades in overall integrity, with improvements in both internal and external integrity ratings.

Mayor Kim Young-jong stated, “We will not be satisfied with the consecutive awards but will continuously discover and implement various projects, big and small, that can enhance residents’ quality of life. We aim to calmly respond to the prolonged COVID-19 situation with a focus on residents’ happiness and safety as we welcome 2021. To realize the changes residents desire in Jongno, we will not lose our original intention of ‘starting small, slowly but properly.’”

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