Open Communication Forum (KR0041)

• Korea's Symbolic Heart Becomes A Symbol of Openness (December 15, 2021)

• OpenStoriesThird Graders Pitch In On What's Pitched Out (December 16, 2021)

• Faces of Open Government: Minister Young Chin (October 1, 2019)

Operation of an On- and Off-line Open Communication Forum ‘Gwanghwamoon 1st Street'
Commitment Start and End Date
September 1, 2018 ~ August 31, 2020
Lead Implementing Agency/Actor
Public Participation Policy Division, Ministry of the Interior and Safety
Commitment Description
What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
Shortly after the inauguration, the Moon administration took in policy proposals from citizens for 50 days (May 25 – July 12, 2017) by launching the Gwanghwamoon 1st Street, a communication channel, at Sejongno Park. Of 180,705 sets of idea collected through the Gwanghwamoon 1st Street, 1,718 were selected, and 99 of them were reflected to the Moon administration’s policy tasks. Indeed, this case showed the public’s drive for participation in policy making. Consequently, a sufficient channel that enables public access and actually facilitatescitizen participation needs to be built to respond to the skyrocketing demand amongst citizens for citizen participation such as opinion sharing, discussions and consultations.
What is the commitment?
The purpose of this commitment is to expand the on- and off-line public participation platform which boosts citizen participation and taps into the public’s collective intelligence in policy making. The primary content of the commitment is as follows: find topics for discussion such as chronic social problems and causes for inconvenience that affect people’s lives; operate a public platform for policy discussions to have the public’s input in the solution building process; provide integrated services to diversify channels of citizen participation in policy making through conneted participation channels of multiple organizations and providing a single point of access to relevant services.
How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?
The detailed implementation methods are as follows: 1) to operate an off-line open communication forum as a public policy discussion platform where citizens, experts and public servants discuss social issues closely related with people’s lives; to host open communication forums and policy conferences on a regular basis, thereby collecting policy suggestions and forwarding them to relevant offices so that they could be reflected in policy making; to send the forum outcome report to relevant ministries as an official document so that the ministries could collaborate through conducting follow-up meetings and discussions to reflect the outcomes in policy making; to share the entire process with the public through the “the Day of Citizen Participation“ ceremony and the publication of a white paper; 2) to provide O2O services via the online citizen participation platform (website); to re-launch the website, currently in provisional operation, as the online citizen participation platform, providing live video streaming of forums and a real-time comment feature during the later half of this year in connection with other citizen participation platforms such as People’s Idea Box, an online platform for policy proposals, and e-People officer; to bring about a paradigm shift in the government’s operation so that the public could transform social issues into policy agenda and work with the government to solve problems
Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
Citizen Participation
Exchange and Peer Learning
The Director of the Public Participation Policy Division participated in the 2018 IIAS held in Tunis, Tunisia on June 27, delivering a presentation on the Gwanghwamoon 1st Street, selected as a best practice for inclusive governance, and a Q&A session
Additional Information
Budget for 2019: 1.46 billion won
Milestone Activity with a Verifiable Deliverable
Hosting the 10th Open Communication Forum
Hosting a regional conference (‘island’ theme)
Hosting a policy conference
Hosting the 2019 Open Communication Forum
Contact Information
Title, Division
Deputy Director, Public Participation Policy Division
Email and Phone
mark@korea.kr, +82-2-2100-3462
Other Actors Involved,
Hyeonjik Lee, Deputy Director, Public Participation Policy Division, Ministry of the Interior and Safety (supporting the operation of the open communication forum)

5-2. Operation of an On-and Offline Open Communication Forum "Gwanghwamoon 1^st street"

Commitment Text:

"Operation of an On-and Off-line Open Communication Forum "Gwanghwamoon 1^st Street'"

The purpose of this commitment is to expand the on- and off-line public participation platform which boosts citizen participation and taps into the public's collective intelligence in policy making. The primary content of the commitment is as follows: find topics for discussion such as chronic social problems and causes for inconvenience that affect people's lives; operate a public platform for policy discussions to have the public's input in the solution building process; provide integrated services to diversify channels of citizen participation in policy making through connected participation channels of multiple organizations and providing a single point of access to relevant services.

The detailed implementation methods are as follows:

1) to operate an off-line open communication forum as a public policy discussion platform where citizens, experts and public servants discuss social issues closely related with people's lives; to host open communication forums and policy conferences on a regular basis, thereby collecting policy suggestions and forwarding them to relevant offices so that they could be reflected in policy making; to send the forum outcome report to relevant ministries as an official document so that the ministries could collaborate through conducting follow-up meetings and discussions to reflect the outcomes in policy making; to share the entire process with the public through the "the Day of Citizen Participation" ceremony and the publication of a white paper;

2) to provide O2O services via the online citizen participation platform (website); to re-launch the website, currently in provisional operation, as the online citizen participation platform, providing live video streaming of forums and a real-time comment feature during the later half of this year in connection with other citizen participation platforms such as People's Idea Box, an online platform for policy proposals, and e-People officer; to bring about a paradigm shift in the government's operation so that the public could transform social issues into policy agenda and work with the government to solve problems.

Milestones:

• Hosting the 10th Open Communication Forum
• Hosting a regional conference ('island' theme)
• Hosting a policy conference
• Hosting the 2019 Open Communication Forum

Start Date: 1 September 2018 End Date: 31 August 2020

Editorial Note: For the full text of the commitment, please see Korea's 4th National Action Plan 2018-2020 at https://bit.ly/2JvQr98.

Context and Objectives

The purpose of this commitment is to expand an on- and offline public participation platform called "Gwanghwamoon 1^st street." Following South Korea's "candlelight protest" [25] and an earlier-than-scheduled presidential election, the newly elected Moon administration initially launched the Gwanghwamoon 1^st street initiative in 2017 as an offline venue (and later online) to collect ideas from the public at the beginning of its term. [26] Specifically, the project started as an alternative to the Moon administration's transition office to reflect citizens' voices in the new government's priorities and policies. Within a period of 50 days, the project collected over 180,000 proposals.

Building on this successful initiation, this commitment aims to expand the Gwanghwamoon 1^st street platform's capacity to boost citizen participation and gather public input. The commitment activities seek to identify chronic social problems and address them by operating public forums for policy discussions between citizens and policymakers. The commitment also aims to relaunch an online platform that connects multiple participation channels and directs citizens to offline services via announcements and livestreams. The commitment indicates South Korea will forward policy ideas and forum outcomes to relevant ministries and that it will organize a "Day of Citizen Participation" to share the entire process with the public through a ceremony and white paper.

This commitment is relevant to the OGP value of civic participation as it increases opportunities for citizens to inform government policymaking. It is also relevant to the value of technology and innovation for transparency and accountability as it uses technological solutions to enable civic participation through the Gwanghwamoon 1^st street online platform.

The milestones are generally verifiable and specific. The commitment notes its focus on improving the Gwanghwamoon 1^st street platform and has verifiable milestones to the extent that they refer to concrete and specific outputs (e.g., hosting the 10^th Open Communication Forum or hosting a policy conference). The dates for these activities are clearly outlined. However, the milestones do not appear to speak to all components of the commitment outlined in action plan.

Prior to this commitment, Gwanghwamoon 1^st street facilitated citizen participation through idea generation and policy consultations. [27] It is an open forum where citizens and public servants discuss social issues and design corresponding policy programs. It also connects citizens to existing online citizen participation platforms such as People's Voice, [28] Blue House Petition, [29] and the newly launched People's Idea Box. As previously described, Gwanghwamoon 1^st street originally collected over 180,000 ideas from the public and the Moon administration established 99 ideas as policy tasks.

This commitment adds value to the existing platform by organizing a number of events, forums, and conferences where citizens can share their ideas on policy. However, the commitment stands to have minor potential impact as it does not lay out innovative, ambitious measures and deliverables to ensure this continued civic participation will affect the policy process. For example, the commitment does not propose any mechanisms or mandates to ensure citizens ideas can actually inform or lead to policy changes. Despite this, in 2018, the government reported that 72 citizen proposals were selected from the Gwanghwamoon 1^st street platform, of which 45 (62.5%) were reflected in policies. [30] While the process of translating and developing a citizen proposal into policy is carried out by the government in a transparent manner—and made public on the Gwanghwamoon 1^st street website—there remains opportunity to ensure that such deliberation is done systematically, with clear opportunities for citizens to inform and engage in all stages of the policy development process.

Next steps

Noting that this commitment builds on a pre-existing initiative, the IRM recommends pursuing more ambitious milestones that could potentially transform business as usual if this commitment is carried forward into future action plans.

The IRM also recommends the following considerations:

• Consider developing verifiable indicators to measure whether Gwanghwamoon 1^st street activities have led to new policies and whether those policies are effective. For example, this could include a formal milestone for agencies' consideration of citizens' policy ideas.
• Consider the institutionalization of Gwanghwamoon 1^st street, for example through legislation.

5-2. Operation of an On- and Offline Open Communication Forum, “Gwanghwamoon 1^st Street”

Complete:

For details regarding implementation and early results, see Section 2.3.

Aim of the commitment

This commitment aimed to expand the Gwanghwamoon 1^st Street

platform’s capacity to boost citizen participation. The commitment sought to identify chronic social problems and address them by operating public forums for policy discussions between citizens and policymakers. The commitment also aimed to relaunch an online platform that connects multiple participation channels and directs citizens to offline services via announcements and livestreams. Policy ideas and forum outcomes would be forwarded to relevant ministries. The commitment also foresaw organization of the “Day of Citizen Participation” to share the entire process with the public through a ceremony and white paper.

Did it open government?

Marginal

The government conducted the first round of consultations in 2017, prior to the start of the action plan. It received 180,705 sets of citizen ideas, selected 1,718, and 99 were reflected in policy tasks. According to the government’s self-assessment, [7] the new participation platform and open communication forum were launched in 2019. During forums held in 2018, 2019, and 2020, the government received a total of 169 policy suggestions. A total of 111 policy suggestions have been adopted. Examples of suggestions include the installation of icepack-only collection bins to prevent microplastic pollution, led by the Ministry of Environment, and the introduction of a simplified, insurance-benefit claims process where the claims can be made online without a paper application, led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The submission channel of the Public Participation Platform has been integrated into the Government Innovation Public Forum to ensure continuity. According to Transparency International Korea, the forum has been a useful tool for civic participation. Anybody can suggest their policy idea and cast their vote for any suggestion posted on the website. The committee with ordinary citizen participation then reviews and decides whether to select the suggestion. [8]

Inclusion of this pre-existing initiative in the action plan aimed to make Gwanghwamoon 1^st Street a permanent space for citizen participation. Despite continuing forums and the launch of the new participation platform, IRM did not see evidence to conclude that there was a major expansion of the existing forum or any new features that would make this a major change compared to the status quo. Outcomes of these activities are a positive but only marginal change in government practice in the area of civic participation. The government aims to continue efforts to make this a permanent participation initiative in the country.