The meeting was held in the office of KLID in Seoul, Korea, as follow-up to the first meeting in January 2017 (http://unpog.org/media/media01_02.php?seq=449), which discussed about mutual cooperation in general, with regard to enhancing capacities of local governance for developing countries. In connection to the first meeting, both sides had more in-depth discussion about materialising mutual collaboration.
 
First of all, Mr. Son, President of KLID, welcomed the delegation of UNPOG and expressed his wish that both sides could work more closely in the area of ICT and innovative public service delivery at local level, being sure that the collaboration will create greater synergies for mutually beneficial outcomes.
 
Mr. Chung emphasised that local authorities play a critical role in implementing the SDGs, given their proximity to citizens and ability to grasp the needs of people on the ground. He also highlighted that expertise and experiences of KLID in e-government development at local level are highly critical for improving efficiency and transparency of local governments around the world. In particular, he underscored that work scope of KLID is highly relevant with that of UNPOG/DPADM which focuses its activities on “Leaving No One Behind” by being actively engaged in institutional reform and public service innovation both at national and local levels. In this regard, he expressed his strong wish to strengthen cooperation with KLID which will be win-win situation for both organisations.
 
Then, Mr. Kang, Director of Global Cooperation in KLID, introduced KLID and its current global initiatives. He shared that KLID has been actively involved in informatisation of local governments of developing countries by disseminating Korea’s good practices such as Information Network Village (Invil) and birth registration system. He noted that KLID had already conducted a feasibility study for a municipality in Indonesia as a preparatory step before putting in place Invil, which was highly acknowledged by the Government of Indonesia, and this year it is expected to join in studies on gauzing level of informatisation for countries in Africa in collaboration with African Development Bank. Furthermore he told that in cooperation with ADB, KLID last year had successfully finished its training programme for government officials in Asia in regards to birth registration and this year it wishes to continue to implement substantive trainings in collaboration with other international organisations such as UNPOG.
 
During the meeting, it was discussed on how to strengthen mutual collaboration. Both sides exchanged opinions on joint development of the training module targeted for localising SDGs particularly in the field of innovative local service delivery for SDG implementation or institutional arrangement at national and local levels for effective public service delivery. It was also discussed to conduct the module-based joint training by making use of training facility of KLID. Both sides also shared their ideas about collaborating in developing local e-government development indices. Especially, KLID expressed that like the UN E-Government Survey the accredited e-government development indices at local level have not been developed yet and in this regard it wishes to develop local e-government benchmarks with the support of UNDESA which already has plentiful experience in developing UN E-Government Survey. KLID also encouraged UNPOG to be an active partner in conducting its planned joint projects with multi-lateral regional banks, such as developing e-government master plan for African countries.
 
KLID also shared that it was requested by ADB to participate in the Forum on Governance and Institutions which will be held on 9-11 August 2017 in Seoul, Korea, and UNPOG will also participate in as one of main partners. Both sides shared same understanding that this Forum could be a good starting point to cooperate with each other and an effective venue for further crystallising collaboration.
 
After discussion, UNPOG was led to visit cyber security control centre in KLID where the presentation was made on how cyber security of 226 local governments in Korea is protected through integrated management system. Then UNPOG visited Government 3.0 promotion centre which was established for citizens not only to raise awareness of Korean Government’s public administration innovation initiative ‘Government 3.0’ but also to provide citizens with practical guidance on starting ventures based on big data analytics and to share practices related public service innovation.