United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

- “Why is it difficult to familiarize oneself with Seoul and Seoulites?”, “Because of Koreans’ strong sense of ethnic homogeneity and the language barrier.” -
In Seoul, there are 255,207 foreigners or 2.44% of the entire population of the city as of 2008. The rate of increase in the number of foreigners stands at 21.4%, over the past 5 years. However, the country’s level of globalization ranks 29th among 123 countries, behind Hong Kong (10th), Singapore (12th), and Japan (15th), despite the rapid increase in the number of foreigners to the country (Dreher, 2006).

Korea is not relatively open to immigrants because Koreans have a strong sense of ethnic homogeneity and the language barrier. In fact, new arrivals from other countries to Korea say that they have many difficulties settling in Seoul. These difficulties are attributable to the insufficient support they receive from the public service sector (Nomura Research Institute, 2003). The City of Seoul has been making efforts to foster an environment in which non-Koreans can communicate with locals in order to make it easier to settle in Korea. This is important issue where cooperation with the international community has significant roles in strengthening the nation’s competitiveness. In short, the City of Seoul has realized the need to build a global city in which everyone, including non-Koreans, is treated equally and diversity and creativity are respected.

However, the Seoul Help Center for Foreigners, established in June 2003, did not give sufficient aide in easing the daily difficulties experienced by foreigners in Seoul because it only provided limited services such as counseling in English. In an effort to improve the situation, the City of Seoul launched the Seoul Global Center (SGC), in January 2008, to provide a practical one-stop service for foreigners.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
- Enhanced status of Seoul as a global city through its various considerations for foreigners - In 2006, the City of Seoul set up a plan to upgrade itself to become one of the World’s leading cities through globalization and launched the Global Zone Project as part of this plan. The Global Zone Project was aimed to help non-Koreans with economic activities and daily lives in Seoul and to increase their exchange with Koreans. In this sense, 15 zones were designated to help non-Koreans. The 15 zones were divided into global business zones, global village zones and global cultural exchange zones. Located in one of the zones, the SGC provides diverse integrated services for foreigners. - Provision of one-stop services - The Seoul Help Center for Foreigners was replaced by the SGC, which assumed a wider range of service functions, including professional consultations on labor, legal and tax matters, business consultations and administrative services (such as those concerning immigration, tax, drivers license, tourism, cell phone ownership, credit cards, pension and insurance), in addition to what had been covered by the center. The service provided by the SGC adequately reduced the inconvenience experienced by immigrants, particularly newcomers, in their everyday lives. The City of Seoul established a system of cooperation with the national government - and privately-run institutions - to provide helpful services to foreigners. The SGC handled the following number of service cases: 100,736 (or 430 a day) in 2008 and 99,309 or (487 a day) in 2009 (until October 20), including 1,263 cases concerning cell phone ownership, 2,383 cases concerning drivers licenses, and 472 cases concerning financial transactions. Effective June 2008, invoices for fines and utility bills were printed in four foreign languages (i.e., English, Chinese, Japanese and French) in addition to Korean. In June 2008, the Foreign Exchange Transactions Regulation was amended to make it possible to use check cards (cash cards) issued in Korea out of the country.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The SGC was launched by Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's firm commitment to turn the country’s capital into a clean and attractive world-class city based on his belief that Seoul’s urban competitiveness represented Korea’s competitiveness in the 21st Century. In July 2007, the Seoul Globalization Research Support Unit was launched, within the Seoul Development Institute, as a think tank concerned with re-structuring strategies of Seoul for reinforcing the global competitiveness, under the leadership of the Executive Officer in charge of global competitiveness. In December 2007, the Global Promotion Act for Seoul was enacted, thus laying the basis for the implementation of the project. The relevant infrastructure had to first be established to enable SGC's provision of one-stop services. The City of Seoul signed agreements for alliances with many governmental institutions and private businesses, such as the Ministry of Justice (concerning immigration services), the National Police Agency (drivers licenses), the Consumers’ Union of Korea (consumer-related matters), the Korea Tourism Association, the National Health Insurance Corporation, the National Pension Corporation, the National Tax Service, KEB (credit card-related matters), and LG Telecom (cell phone ownership). Thus, SGC was ready to provide integrated services ranging from multi-language consultations to administrative services to help non-Koreans settle in the city more easily. What is more important is that these projects were implemented in public-private partnership.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
First of all, the SGC focused its efforts on fostering an environment for a multi-cultural society, where foreigners are treated as equals to the locals. The SGC also designated areas with a high concentration of foreign-invested businesses, areas with a high concentration of foreign visitors and areas where many foreigners resided as global zones and made efforts to improve the conditions for the daily living of foreigners thus reducing the difficulties they encountered living in the city. The SGC designated areas where foreigners were concentrated as global zones and overhauled the public service systems and provision of support through the use of major foreign languages used in Seoul. Second, it was arranged so that equal services would be provided, regardless of nationality, to ensure that foreign businesses and workers were treated as the primary beneficiaries of the services provided in the global zones. The opinions of immigrants were collected to identify the services they most desired. Diverse immigrant communities, such as the Seoul International Women’s Association (SIWA), the Foreign Chambers of Commerce, Associations of Foreign Students, the Daily Living Advisory Council, the Seoul Town Hall Meeting, and the Seoul International Students Forum, are encouraged to contribute inputs towards our on-going efforts in this respect. Third, the SGC is making efforts to expand exchanges between local residents and foreigners, particularly in global village zones, with the goal of realizing a multi-cultural society, while pushing ahead with relevant educational programs that aim to overcome the cultural differences between locals and foreigners.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In January 2005, the Seoul City Hall Branch of the Seoul Immigration Office was opened to provide the issuance of business/short-term tourist visas. The range of public services provided to foreigners, however, remained at a paltry level. With the objective of establishing the strategy for the globalization of Seoul, along with the plan for its promotion, in August 2007, as initiated by Mayor Oh Se-hoon a few months earlier, the outline of the integrated support system for foreigners, including administrative services, began to take shape. In October 2007, the SGC signed an agreement with the Driver’s License Agency in order to handle issues regarding foreign driver’s licenses. In February 2008, a month after its opening, the SGC signed an agreement with KEB and LG Telecom pertaining to the commencement of services relating to financial transactions and cell phone ownership. The Seoul Town Hall Meeting (an annual meeting held with 100 representative foreigners in attendance and first held in 2002) and the Seoul International Student Forum (an annual workshop first held in 2008) have served as channels through which the City of Seoul’s policies for supporting foreigners were introduced. Effective March 2009, the City of Seoul decided to take over the services that had formerly been entrusted to outside sources. Such services ranged from solutions found to inconveniences experienced in everyday lives to relevant policy proposals. When it was necessary to improve a policy, the SGC discussed realistic alternatives with the relevant departments, while maintaining cooperative relationships with private institutions. Thus, it succeeded in providing a prompt integrated service for handling foreigners’ complaints/petitions.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The biggest challenge faced by the Seoul Global Center was creating cooperative partnership between government organizations and private organizations. The SGC’s provision of a one-stop service was an unprecedented attempt to establish a cooperative system with more than ten public and private institutions. Other governmental institutions that had experience concerning services geared for foreigners demonstrated a skeptical attitude and pointed to their insufficient manpower. Concerning cooperative relationships with private businesses, SGC selected optimal associations based on various considerations, but those not selected continued to complain. Following the launch of the SGC, an attempt to drastically expand the consultation service was made to help reduce the inconvenience experienced by immigrants. It was necessary to establish systems of cooperation with many relevant institutions in connection with the expansion of the service to a wide range of sectors, including legal/labor/tax matters, national pension, health insurance, tax and real estate. The efficient and prompt provision of services for foreigners required a network of close cooperation between diverse institutions. The most difficult part of the process was to persuade the relevant institutions to provide assistance. The SGC stressed the importance of public interest and corporate social responsibility and went so far as to contact reluctant institutions dozens of times.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
In the beginning, the SGC had 30 staff members, i.e., 6 transferred from the Seoul Help Center for Foreigners, 8 dispatched temporarily from relevant institutions, 3 from the City of Seoul’s district offices and 13 newly hired. Then, they were divided into the Comprehensive Administrate Services Team (11), the Business Service Team (5), the Daily Living Team (5), the Cultural Exchange Team (5), and the Migrant Workers' Service Team (3). The assignments of the Comprehensive Administrate Services Team were divided into immigration (2), driver’s licenses (1), cell phones (1), financial transactions (1), tourism (2), consumer counseling (1), tax (1), and issuance of documents (1). The team’s focus was to provide the services most needed by non-Koreans in their daily lives. The Business Service Team’s primary duty was to handle matters concerning foreign investments and to host explanatory meetings about the investment environment. The Daily Living Team provides consultation on everyday life-related matters and produces various types of materials on a wide array of subjects in multi-languages. The Cultural Exchange Team handles matters concerning education and cultural exchanges. The Migrant Worker’s Service Team provides counseling for married immigrants and migrant workers. The 35-member SGC has expanded its integrated administrative services to sectors such as tax, national pension, health insurance and real estate, as well as professional consultation on legal, labor and tax matters.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
- Applicable anywhere relevant for foreigners - Most of the services provided for foreigners either in Korea or in other countries are segmented. It is thought that such segmented services will not go far in helping immigrants familiarize themselves with the local situation. Financially, they do not entail any problems as the services are provided by existing organizations. Socially and culturally, locals should build a consensus about the need to live with foreigners in a globalized world. Undoubtedly, such a consensus will take time and effort. Right now, institutional improvement takes precedence. The one-stop service designed to help foreign new arrivals to Korea should aim to provide an integrated service that provides practical, and therefore useful, advice. Such a service can be maintained only through a system of close cooperation between the relevant institutions. That is why the importance of institutional improvement is emphasized. - Improvement of quality of life for foreigners is a must in an era of globalization - The SGC provides diverse services, in an integrated fashion, to help immigrants settle in the city more easily. This differentiates it from other institutions in and out of the country performing a similar function. Indeed, the SGC has become a benchmark for other public institutions across the country (such as the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Development Institute, the Busan Development Institute, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education and Ulsan Metropolitan City, etc) as a pioneer in the provision of a one-stop service designed to improve the living environment for foreigners. The one-stop service provided by the SGC is an epoch-making model that can be universally applied to policies concerning the provision of services for foreigners in non-English speaking countries, including those in Asia.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
According to the 2008 Global Cities Index survey carried out in 60 cities of 40 countries, jointly by AT Kearny and Foreign Policy, Seoul jumped to the 9th place, compared to the year 2006, in terms of the level of globalization, which is apparently the result of its systematic efforts to better understand and provide aide to foreigners. The SGC established a system of cooperation with many public and private institutions (organizations) in order to provide a one-stop service for foreigners. In doing so, it has turned Seoul into a foreigner-friendly city. The City of Seoul has provided an integrated service designed to help foreigners settle in Seoul more easily and has utilized the institutional channel it has secured to collect the diverse opinions of foreigners. As a result, it is hoped that Seoul’s ranking on the Global Cities Index will improve. For its continued growth, the City of Seoul must remain firm in its commitment to the said objectives and continue to strive to collect the ideas of all people, locals and foreigners alike, and push ahead with innovative policies based on such ideas. Still, the most important thing is the recognition that the continued checking of the city’s administrative service system from a perspective of foreigners, who are part of the everyday life in Seoul, will enhance the chance of success of the project.


Institution Name:		Competitiveness Policy Division, Seoul Metropolitan Government
Institution Type:		Government Department
Contact Person:		Chiewon Kim
Title:		Deputy Head of Seoul Global Center
Telephone/ Fax:		82-2-2075-4102
Institution's / Project's Website:		82-2-723-3206
E-mail:		chioon@seoul.go.kr
Address:		3rd Fl., Press Center, 25 Taepyeongno 1-ga
Postal Code:		100-750
City:		Jung-gu
State/Province:		Seoul Metropolitan City
Country:

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information