Why Mun Seok-jin, Mayor of Seodaemun-gu, Gave a Staff Lecture on 'Theory and Practice of Collaborative Governance'?

Emphasizing "Sustainable Regional Development Momentum" Emerging from Public-Private Cooperation

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Seodaemun-gu announced on the 9th that District Mayor Moon Seok-jin gave a presentation on the theory and practice of collaborative governance to about 60 senior officials in the district office's main conference room.

The training was organized to activate a culture of public-private collaborative governance throughout the district administration in order to address complex and diverse community issues that are difficult to solve by administrative power alone.

Taking the microphone himself, Mayor Moon emphasized at the beginning of his lecture, "The process may be slow, but sustainable local development momentum comes from collaborative governance, and true public-private collaboration can be achieved when residents have both authority and responsibility."

He then introduced successful cases of collaboration such as the "Caring for 100 Families" project, Dong Welfare Hub, Yeonse-ro Street Vendors, Shingi Playground, Nongol Small Library, Sinchon Box Square, Resident Participatory Budgeting System, and the Public-Private-Academic Governance of the Innovative Education District, as well as projects that were difficult to promote due to poor collaboration.

He also suggested methods to effectively implement collaborative governance, including expanding the concept of the public (民), understanding and executing core elements of collaboration, empowering residents, demonstrating facilitative leadership, and continuous listening and empathy, urging senior staff to take interest and participate.

Under the theme "How to do collaborative governance well," Mayor Moon also presented the results of a survey conducted last month targeting about 30 private members of the Seodaemun-gu collaborative governance committee.

The survey covered topics such as the stages of collaborative governance in Seodaemun-gu, factors determining the success of collaboration, cases where collaboration works well or poorly, and expectations from public officials.

Among these, the question about the stage of collaboration received the most responses (46.7%, 14 people) indicating the fourth stage, "public and government jointly promoting projects by leveraging their respective strengths."

Regarding this, Mayor Moon stated that collaboration can only be completed when it reaches the more advanced fifth stage of collaborative governance, "empowering residents," and urged staff to design systems to achieve this.

He added, "Actively reviewing and implementing the matters residents desire, starting from the district mayor, is also an element of collaborative governance," and said, "We will continue to build a Seodaemun local government that actively communicates and empathizes with residents."

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