Busan City Achieves Top Honors with Two Awards in Ministry of Health and Welfare's Child Policy Evaluation

‘Evaluation of Child Policy Implementation Plan’ Best for 3 Consecutive Years, ‘Child Policy Impact Assessment’ Only Metropolitan Local Government Selected as Best

Mayor Park Hyung-jun: “Realizing Children’s Rights to Respect and Happiness, Creating ‘Busan, the City Where Children Are the Happiest’”

Busan City has achieved the remarkable feat of being selected as the top local government in both the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s ‘Evaluation of Child Policy Implementation Plan Performance’ and ‘Child Policy Impact Assessment,’ winning two top awards in the field of child policy evaluation.

Busan City achieved the top award in child policy evaluation, winning two crowns. Photo by Busan City

Busan has ranked first for three consecutive years in the ‘Evaluation of Child Policy Implementation Plan Performance’ and was the only metropolitan local government selected as the top local government in the ‘Child Policy Impact Assessment.’

The award ceremony took place at the ‘12th Child Policy Forum’ held on the 6th, where the head of the city’s Child and Youth Division personally presented the ‘Best Practices in Child Policy Implementation Plans.’

According to Article 8 of the ‘Child Welfare Act,’ provincial governors establish annual child policy implementation plans, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare evaluates the performance of 17 metropolitan and provincial governments and 229 city, county, and district governments nationwide every year. In this evaluation, Busan and Gangwon were selected as top local governments, while Incheon, Daegu, Gyeonggi, and Jeonbuk were recognized as excellent local governments.

The city planned its vision as ‘Busan, a city where all children are happy and respected,’ with four strategic initiatives, nine policy tasks, and 24 key implementation tasks.

Based on qualitative and quantitative evaluations and expert reviews in related fields, grounded in the 2nd Basic Child Policy Plan (2020?2024) evaluation manual, Busan received high scores in plan appropriateness, implementation fidelity, and achievement of outcomes, securing first place for three consecutive years since 2022.

The Child Policy Impact Assessment (self-evaluation) is conducted based on Article 11-2 of the ‘Child Welfare Act.’ It is an evaluation system where local governments use self-assessment reports to examine the positive and negative impacts of various laws, plans, and projects directly or indirectly related to children and their rights. In this evaluation, Busan was the only metropolitan local government selected as the top local government, while Seo-gu in Busan and Buyeo-gun in Chungnam were selected among basic local governments.

This year, Busan was ranked as the ‘No. 1 City for Child Quality of Life’ with a composite score of 117.38 in the ‘2024 Korea Child Quality of Life Research Report’ released on July 2 by the international child rights NGO Save the Children and the Seoul National University Social Welfare Research Institute.

Accordingly, the city has established the vision of ‘The City Where Children Are the Happiest’ and plans to implement various policies to improve the quality of life for children to achieve first place in all areas by 2030.

Going forward, in connection with the ‘No. 1 Child Quality of Life’ ranking, Busan plans to maintain its status as the top institution in the ‘Child Policy Impact Assessment’ and address deduction areas in each evaluation to secure the longest consecutive first-place ranking in the ‘Evaluation of Child Policy Implementation Plan Performance.’ The city will actively promote policies for ‘Busan, a Leading City in Child Policy’ and ‘Busan, the City Where Children Are the Happiest.’

Mayor Park Hyung-jun said, “This remarkable achievement of winning two top awards is the result of sincere efforts by the city, district and county offices, and the education office in implementing child-related projects.” He added, “Our city will continue to work with the local community to realize the rights of all children to be respected and happy, creating ‘Busan, the City Where Children Are the Happiest.’”

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