Seoul's 'Youth Autonomous Budget' 12 Projects, Online Voting Until Next Month 2... Totaling 7.7 Billion KRW

Over 1,000 Members of the Youth Policy Network Deliberated 230 Times... 12 Policies Derived Through City-Youth Co-Design
Existing 6 Projects Including Seoul Youngtech and Cheongnyeon Mongttang Information Center Upgraded Reflecting Youth Proposals

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is conducting an online public vote on 12 projects under the ‘2023 Seoul Youth Autonomous Budget,’ which are planned and proposed by youth themselves and finalized through citizens' voting. Anyone can participate on the Seoul M-Voting website until October 2.

The public vote aims to prioritize the budget for 12 projects (worth 7.7 billion KRW) created by youth. The voting results will be finalized as the ‘Youth Autonomous Budget Formation Proposal’ at the ‘2022 Seoul Youth Policy Network General Assembly’ held on October 22. The proposal will be reviewed by the city council and incorporated into next year’s Seoul city budget.

The 12 projects up for public voting were planned by about 1,000 youth participants of the Seoul Youth Policy Network through over 230 deliberations over five months. In the process of maturing ideas into policies, youth stakeholders and the Seoul city government jointly designed the policies, reflecting the perspectives of youth in the policies.

Looking at the details of the 12 projects, many policies related to ‘walking together with the vulnerable’ stand out. In particular, a representative policy is the support for daily life education before and after discharge to help independent youth (youth aging out of child protection) achieve practical independence, which has recently become a social issue due to a series of extreme choices. Additionally, a joint activity support project involving both disabled and non-disabled youth was proposed. The budget for last year’s flagship youth autonomous budget policy, the ‘Youth Mental Health Support Project,’ will be expanded about twofold to promote the establishment of a digital platform where diagnosis, counseling, and follow-up care are conducted in a one-stop manner.

Furthermore, policies to support youth’s leap forward, such as career education for non-college-bound youth and team-building support for early-stage entrepreneurs, as well as policies to draw youth interest in climate change response like youth environmental education camps, were also proposed.

This year’s youth autonomous budget focuses not only on proposing new projects but also on improving existing policies from the youth perspective. Six projects worth 16.6 billion KRW, reflecting youth opinions, are scheduled to be implemented in 2023.

Meanwhile, the youth autonomous budget, directly proposed and organized by youth, started in 2020. Projects proposed through the youth autonomous budget and scheduled to be included in the 2023 main budget amount to three projects worth 119.1 billion KRW. Kim Cheol-hee, head of the Seoul Future Youth Planning Team, said, “We hope citizens will participate actively in the online voting and support the policies that youth have deliberated and proposed for over five months to be reflected in city administration.”

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