Ministry of the Interior and Safety Holds 'Safety Policy Coordination Committee' Meeting... Discusses Basic Plan for National Safety Education and More

Promoting Safety Measures That Citizens Can Feel

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 20th that it held the '4th Safety Policy Coordination Committee Meeting of 2022' to review major policies related to disaster and safety management in advance.

The agenda items discussed this time included the 2nd Basic Plan for National Safety Education (draft), the Comprehensive Maintenance Plan for Mandatory Disaster Safety Insurance (draft), measures for responding to mega and year-round wildfires, and requests for cooperation from local governments.

As the first agenda item, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will promote the 2nd Basic Plan for National Safety Education (2023?2027), which includes 14 tasks across 6 sectors aimed at enhancing the public's ability to prevent and respond to disasters and safety accidents to realize a society where citizens' daily lives are safe. The basic plan includes strengthening the safety education promotion system, revitalizing safety education, expanding experience-based safety education, developing and distributing safety education content and programs, fostering and utilizing safety education institutions and professionals, and establishing a social safety education support system.

Next, to compensate for disaster damages, a comprehensive maintenance plan for mandatory disaster safety insurance, which is legally required to be subscribed to, will be prepared and implemented. Currently, 47 types of mandatory disaster safety insurance are in operation, but issues such as differences in compensation limits and inconsistent application regulations among individual insurances were identified, leading to amendments to the 'Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety.' Through this, key contents such as integrated information evaluation, recommendations for system improvements, and linkage of comprehensive information systems will be revised.

Additionally, the Korea Forest Service has prepared measures to respond to mega and year-round wildfires. Due to the impact of recent climate change, mega wildfires have occurred worldwide, and South Korea experienced 618 wildfires in the first half of this year. Accordingly, measures to strengthen wildfire prevention activities through the enhancement of wildfire risk and vulnerable area information and an intelligent wildfire risk forecasting system, as well as the establishment of a rapid suppression system through the expansion of helicopters, equipment, and personnel, will be promoted to prevent the enlargement of wildfires.

Kim Seong-ho, Director of the Disaster and Safety Management Headquarters, stated, “The safety education, maintenance of mandatory disaster safety insurance, and wildfire prevention discussed at this committee are all closely related to the lives of the people, and it is most important that they actually operate in the field and are communicated to the public.” He added, “We ask ministries and local governments to do their best in follow-up measures such as establishing substantial internal plans and publicity plans so that the plans discussed today are properly implemented in the field and felt by the people.”

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