Ministry of the Interior and Safety selects Gunpo-si as Best for Deliberation-Based Resident Participation... Chungnam-do awarded Best for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Gunpo City, which established a new citizen participation model by forming the ‘Gunpo City 100-Person Committee,’ and Chungcheongnam-do, which became the first in the nation to agree on livestock breeding restrictions in city-county border areas, were selected as the best local governments in ‘deliberation-based resident participation’ and ‘cooperation and dispute resolution,’ respectively.

On the 2nd, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced that it had selected eight local governments, including Gunpo City in Gyeonggi Province and Chungcheongnam-do, as excellent local governments at the ‘Local Government Deliberation-Based Resident Participation and Cooperation & Dispute Resolution Best Practices Competition.’

The competition was held in two categories: ‘deliberation-based resident participation’ and ‘cooperation & dispute resolution.’ The evaluation process included expert document reviews, public judging via Gwanghwamun 1st Street, and one-on-one interview assessments.

The best case in the ‘deliberation-based resident participation’ category was the operation of Gunpo City’s ‘Gunpo City 100-Person Committee.’ Gunpo City received high praise for establishing a new citizen participation model for deliberative democracy. Daegu Metropolitan City, which won the excellence award, had citizens directly select the site for the new Daegu Metropolitan City Hall, a long-standing issue unresolved for 15 years due to conflicts between districts and counties, through ‘citizen-centered public-private governance.’

Wanju County in Jeonbuk, which won the encouragement award, promoted the nation’s first ‘Child Ombudsperson Office Establishment Project’ as a deliberation-based resident participation model to respond to child rights violations, actively addressing issues such as counseling and rights protection activities for children and adolescents. Along with Wanju County, Jeonju City in Jeonbuk, also an encouragement award recipient, conducted a citizen deliberation process for about a year using a ‘scenario workshop + public opinion survey’ method to seek reasonable utilization plans for the former Daehan Textile site and resolve conflicts among residents, gathering diverse opinions and deriving development scenarios to form consensus.

Chungcheongnam-do was selected as the best local government in the ‘local government cooperation & dispute resolution’ category. Chungcheongnam-do formed and operated the ‘Livestock Breeding Border Area Adjustment Council,’ involving 15 cities and counties within the province, and completed the amendment of livestock breeding restriction ordinances for all city and county border areas nationwide for the first time in April this year. Yeoju City in Gyeonggi Province, which won the excellence award, actively addressed issues such as reconstruction failures, auction proceedings, and security and safety problems caused by conflicts among store owners due to the decline of the traditional market in the old downtown area by pursuing market acquisition.

Nam-gu in Gwangju, which won the encouragement award, established a public-private joint cooperation system to resolve conflicts among residents, street vendors, and store merchants caused by street vending in local parks, and agreed to open the ‘Pureungil Saturday Market,’ presenting a coexistence community model through compromise among the district office, merchants’ association, and street vendors. The same encouragement award recipient, Bupyeong-gu in Incheon, operated the ‘Conflict Mediation Yard System’ for civil complaints difficult to handle administratively due to conflicts among residents, contributing to community restoration by discovering a ‘community communication meeting’ model that resolves conflicts through dialogue and compromise among the residents involved rather than unilateral complaint handling.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to compile the best practices of the eight local governments awarded in this competition into a best practices collection, distribute it to local governments nationwide, and post it on the Ministry’s website.

Lim Sang-gyu, Director of the Local Autonomy and Decentralization Policy Division, stated, “Various conflicts arise in the process of establishing and implementing public policies, and the increase in such conflicts not only hinders social integration but also causes enormous social costs. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety will continue to actively support local governments to prevent conflicts in advance and to cooperate with each other to resolve disputes.”

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