Seoul City Significantly Improves Participatory Budgeting System... Discovering New Projects Worth 50 Billion Won

Proposals for Citizen Projects in Transportation, Health, and Environment...Expecting Suggestions for Projects in Administrative Blind Spots

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government's citizen participatory budgeting system for the 2023 budget formulation will undergo significant changes.

On the 18th, Seoul announced that it will discover projects worth a total of 50 billion KRW for socially vulnerable groups through citizen proposals in areas of high public interest such as transportation, health, and environment, and allocate these as next year's project budget. Additionally, starting this year, the city will operate the "Seoul Budget: Choice of Ten Million" project, which gathers opinions from citizens both online and offline on major financial policies and projects closely related to citizens' lives and involving large-scale funding.

The citizen participatory budgeting system, initiated in 2012, allows citizens to directly discover and propose projects, participate in budget formulation, review, and selection processes, and have the final budget reflected. Although project budgets have been allocated through this system over the past decade, awareness and satisfaction with the system remain relatively low. Therefore, the system has been revamped to enhance citizens' perception and satisfaction.

This year, a newly introduced "planned proposal type" citizen participatory budget totals 50 billion KRW. A citizen survey was conducted in 10 fields where many proposals were received last year, including parks, transportation, environment, safety, and welfare. From these, three project themes with high citizen interest and aimed at socially vulnerable groups were selected: creating a city that accompanies transportation-disadvantaged individuals, creating a city that cares for the healthy lives of socially vulnerable groups, and creating a city that practices carbon neutrality in citizens' daily lives.

Project proposals can be submitted by Seoul citizens, workers and students residing in Seoul, and organizations. Proposed projects will be reviewed by the Citizen Participatory Budget Committee and experts, then selected through citizen voting. After budget approval by the city council, the Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to directly implement the projects in 2023.

Furthermore, Seoul will also launch the "Seoul Budget: Choice of Ten Million" project this year, which selects financial policies or projects requiring social consensus and large-scale budgets closely related to citizens' lives, and collects citizen opinions. The collected opinions will be used to guide Seoul's financial management direction and major project implementation, aiming to increase citizens' perception and satisfaction with financial matters. "Seoul Budget: Choice of Ten Million" was introduced to actively solicit and reflect citizens' opinions on major financial policies pursued by Seoul through online and offline public forums.

The roles of Seoul and its autonomous districts will also change. Until now, the Seoul participatory budgeting system and the 25 district participatory budgeting systems often overlapped in function and role, or district projects were operated relying on Seoul's finances. From this year, Seoul will focus on metropolitan-level social issues with high citizen interest and necessary for socially vulnerable groups, while districts will focus on community-based projects addressing local problems, clearly distinguishing their functions and roles.

The scale and operation method of the citizen participatory budgeting organization will also be simplified. Last year, about 340 citizen participatory budget committee members participated in 24 subcommittee meetings, but the complex system lowered operational efficiency. This year, the committee will be composed of fewer than 100 members, and meetings will be flexibly operated depending on the agenda.

Jung Jin-il, Director of the Citizen Deliberative Budget Division, said, "We have significantly improved the citizen participatory budgeting system to enhance general citizens' participation and the system's efficiency by supplementing the system we have been promoting," adding, "We hope citizens actively propose participatory budget projects in transportation, health, and environment sectors for socially vulnerable groups."

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