‘Annyeonghan Busan’ Welfare Basic Plan Announced … Official Launch of Busan City's Welfare Brand

Policy Vision: 'Warm 15-Minute Care Welfare Community City Busan' Established

Measurement of 33 Busan-Type Policy Outcomes, Increased Perceived Quality of Life and Satisfaction↑

The welfare brand of Busan City, ‘Annyeonghan Busan,’ where citizens inquire about each other's well-being and connect, where citizens feel comfortable without worries, and where citizens are healthy and happy, has been officially launched.

‘Annyeonghan Busan’ Welfare Brand Logo.

Busan City has established the ‘Annyeonghan Busan’ welfare basic plan (2023?2026), which contains the welfare policy directions and strategies for the 8th term of the elected government.

‘Annyeonghan Busan’ (abbreviated as ‘Anbu’) is a welfare strategy brand of Busan City that means citizens connect as good neighbors to create a healthy and happy Busan together.

The 8th term ‘Annyeonghan Busan’ welfare basic plan sets three strategic goals: ▲Warm Care City ▲Smart Health City ▲Vibrant Opportunity City, and presents 70 projects under 16 tasks.

With the policy direction of creating a ‘Warm 15-Minute Care Welfare Community City Busan,’ where anyone can conveniently enjoy care close to home whenever needed, the welfare strategy aims to improve the quality of life and pursue happiness for all citizens.

In particular, the ‘Annyeonghan Busan’ welfare basic plan is noteworthy for focusing on policy implementation based on objective data reflecting citizens’ desires.

Busan conducted a perception survey targeting about 2,000 citizens and 30 experts to prepare ‘welfare policies desired by citizens’ by area, based on universality (for all citizens), sufficiency (demand-based and customized), continuity (throughout the entire life cycle), and accessibility (15-minute city).

Based on citizens’ demands, the city plans to focus on implementing welfare basic plan’s daily close-to-life policy projects over four years (2023?2026) to enhance citizens’ welfare empathy and perception.

? The first strategic goal, ‘Creating a warm care city where people live together and care for each other,’ aims to strategically promote care services for children, the elderly, and the disabled so that any citizen can comfortably enjoy them where they live whenever needed. It consists of 26 projects, with a budget of 1.5964 trillion KRW over four years.

Structurally, Busan has a low total fertility rate, a high proportion of elderly population, and 176,245 registered disabled persons (as of 2022), ranking second among the seven major metropolitan cities. Also, the rate of private education for first graders, who require a lot of care, is high, and many elderly people want to receive care in their current residence, but sufficient care provision is lacking.

Accordingly, the city plans to strategically provide reliable care services. It will strengthen care systems and public childcare tailored to Busan’s characteristics, such as expanding Dahamkke Care Centers and national/public daycare centers, emergency care support, and elementary school care classrooms. It will also focus on providing diverse and sufficient care services for the elderly and disabled. Through expanding Busan-type integrated care, customized elderly care services, support for disabled activities and child development, and disabled city tour projects, the city plans to build a regional integrated care system and expand daily close-to-life care.

? The second strategic goal, ‘Creating a convenient smart health city with public medical services accessible near home,’ plans to expand the public medical infrastructure and provide citizen-centered customized services so that anyone can more easily and conveniently use public medical services near their home. It consists of 14 projects, with a budget of 287.8 billion KRW over four years.

Compared to other cities and provinces, Busan has a smaller proportion of public medical institutions, a high unmet medical needs rate despite the need for medical services, and an increasing trend in citizens’ experience of depression. Dementia is also a disease feared by all citizens, including those of Busan.

Therefore, the city aims to provide fast and convenient public medical services by establishing the Western Busan Medical Center, converting the Baptism Hospital into a public hospital, expanding village health centers and mobile medical bus operations, and strengthening daily close health support. To enhance dementia health infrastructure and mental health services, it plans to expand dementia safety center branches and dementia safety villages, establish a mental emergency response system, and implement mobile mental health service projects, focusing on providing essential mental and dementia health services.

? The final strategic goal, ‘Creating a vibrant opportunity city with guaranteed income stability,’ aims to strategically promote job creation and living support services that guarantee income stability for youth, the elderly, and low-income groups. A total of 30 projects are planned, with an estimated total budget of 2.5068 trillion KRW.

Busan’s employment rate is below the national average, youth employment rate is low, and job satisfaction is lowest among those aged 60 and above. The proportion of housing over 30 years old is high, and private education participation is increasing.

To improve this situation, the city plans to establish the HAHA Center, discover elderly jobs with the local community, expand Busan-type emergency welfare support, and operate the Youth Dudream Center to strengthen job discovery for youth and elderly and living security for low-income groups. For customized housing supply and improvement services for vulnerable groups, it will focus on supporting newlywed Lucky7 Houses, supplying Hope Addition Housing, and green remodeling of old public rental housing. It also plans to promote diverse and equitable education services through revitalizing local lifelong education and strengthening customized educational welfare support for vulnerable groups.

Furthermore, Busan City will establish ‘Busan-type welfare performance indicators’ to improve policy alignment with citizens’ demands and enhance citizens’ policy perception and quality of life.

It will measure policy performance and increase citizen perception through a total of 33 Busan-type performance indicators, including childcare environment satisfaction, citizens’ expected lifespan, subjective health perception rate, consumer life satisfaction, income satisfaction, housing environment satisfaction, and public education environment satisfaction.

In particular, the 33 indicators include 10 quality-of-life measurement indicators to improve citizens’ quality of life, and an external expert task force will be formed to manage and enhance Busan-type welfare policy performance indicators.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “This plan is the basic direction and platform of the 8th term welfare policy to create an ‘Annyeonghan Busan’ where citizens are always comfortable and happy in daily life,” and added, “We will properly implement the basic plan to connect all generations and classes as good neighbors, create a warm 15-minute care community, and make Busan a healthy and happy city for all citizens.”

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