Foreign officials examine Seoul’s e-government system

By Lee Woo-young
Foreign public officials arrived in Seoul to learn about the city’s e-government system as part of a training program of the World e-Government Organization of Cities and Local Governments, city officials said Sunday.
The city government invited a total of 13 public officers from nine WeGo member cities including Jakarta, Mexico City, Nairobi, Bucharest to share its e-government practices, provide consultations to their systems and seek solutions to common problems during five day training sessions from Sept. 5-9 in Seoul.
Initiated by Seoul, the WeGo was launched in 2010 as an international cooperative body for city governments pursuing e-governing system in public administration and helping bridge the digital gap among world cities.
Seoul city government has topped in the world e-government rank by the United Nations for four consecutive years from 2003 to 2009 for its innovative, efficient e-government practices evaluated as the best example in enhancing quality of its citizen’s lives.
The city is hoping that the training sessions held at the Seoul Human Resources Development in Seocho will be a chance to upgrade e-government system of the participating countries and overall information infrastructure, city officials said.
“Seoul city government will continue to pursue efforts to share our best e-government practices with other cities through the consultative body of WeGo and therefore narrow information gap among world cities,” said Kang Byung-ho, city’s information director.
The participants will also see how the city’s e-government policies unfold at the Digital Media City in Sangam, the city’s grand project for setting an advanced digital cluster, and 120 Dasan Call Center, phone service center for citizens.
Under the theme of “e-Sharing for All,” WeGo has worked to provide e-government consulting services and IT training to its 49 member countries as well as expanding international cooperation with the United Nations, World Bank.
The body has conducted regular IT training for its member countries and is expected to start online training course for the standardization of the e-government system as a result of the memorandum of understanding signed with World Bank last June.
(wylee@heraldcorp.com)