Gwangju City to Pursue Re-Certification as International Safe City... Launches Academic Research Project

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 17th that it has recently launched an academic service to re-certify as an International Safe City.

The International Safe City is a community safety promotion project that began in 1989 to implement the WHO declaration that "all people have the equal right to enjoy a healthy and safe life."

International Safe City certification is granted to local governments that systematically carry out projects to prevent injuries and promote safety for all citizens, following an evaluation by the International Safe Community Certifying Centre (ISCCC) in Sweden.

In particular, to ensure the sustainability of the projects after certification, a re-certification process must be conducted every five years.

Gwangju was certified as an International Safe City by the ISCCC on April 28, 2016, becoming the 11th city in Korea and the 365th worldwide, and has steadily promoted safety enhancement projects.

Major projects include 138 safety promotion programs jointly implemented by 99 institutions and organizations in Gwangju to reduce injury mortality rates. Additionally, six joint public-private subcommittees composed of experts in various fields such as disaster and accident prevention, violence prevention, suicide prevention, school safety, elderly falls, and road traffic accidents have held 198 subcommittee meetings. Safety promotion initiatives such as the Safety Culture 3·3·3 Citizen Movement are also underway.

Through these efforts, the proportion of accidental injury deaths to total deaths in Gwangju decreased to 9.1%, down 4.2% from 2010 and 0.7% from 2015. The city also achieved improvements in the regional safety index by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and was selected as an excellent institution for disaster safety management evaluation for three consecutive years.

Marking the fifth year since its International Safe City certification, Gwangju entrusted an academic service to a specialized institution on the 15th for re-certification.

The service will analyze injury status and trends among citizens, evaluate safety project outcomes according to seven certification criteria, analyze injury data, establish a customized injury surveillance system, and prepare certification review materials.

The injury surveillance system identifies all information causing injuries, including when, where, and what citizens were doing when injured, producing reliable indicators and enabling independent performance analysis.

Utilizing this system will allow for the development and advancement of safety promotion projects and the derivation of policies and projects that maximize efficiency, which can then be provided to citizens.

Based on the results of this service, Gwangju plans to apply for certification from the ISCCC in the second half of this year.

Moon Beom-su, Director of the Citizen Safety Office of Gwangju City, said, "To guarantee citizens' safety and improve the quality of a happy life, local community members must work together," adding, "With this International Safe City re-certification and the establishment of an injury surveillance system, we will promote more effective and advanced safety promotion projects."

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