Gwangmyeong City Designates 13 Organizations as 'Collaborative Intermediary Support Organizations'

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Yu Je-sung] Gwangmyeong City has embarked on strengthening the foundation of collaborative governance in which citizens and administration work together to solve local issues.

On the morning of the 5th, the city held a meeting of the 'Gwangmyeong City Civil Society Activation and Public Interest Activity Promotion Committee (hereinafter Committee)' at the city hall conference room, where it approved an agenda to designate 13 organizations within the city as 'Collaborative Intermediary Support Organizations.'

The designated organizations are a total of 13 entities: △1.5℃ Climate Ombudsman Support Center △Social Economy Center △Youth House △Second Youth House Cheongchun Kotkkan △Public Food Service Support Center △Public Interest Activity Support Center △Volunteer Center △Community Autonomy Center △Support Center for Families with Disabilities △Redevelopment and Reconstruction Support Center △Urban Regeneration Support Center △Youth Support Center Dream Dream △Environmental Education Center.

Collaborative Intermediary Support Organizations support citizens' public interest activities and policy participation, and play a role in connecting and coordinating communication and cooperation between the administration and civil society. The intermediary support functions that were divided by department and sector are expected to be organically linked, and based on cooperation among organizations, citizen participation is expected to expand in both breadth and depth.

In particular, this designation is significant in that it elevated citizen participation from a formal procedure to an implementation phase and institutionalized it.

In November 2024, the city enacted the 'Ordinance on Activation and Support of Collaborative Intermediary Support Organizations in Gwangmyeong City,' the nation's first of its kind. Based on this, citizen committee members developed designation criteria for intermediary support organizations focusing on how to substantially support citizens' public interest activities and policy participation.

The committee derived four areas—△social value orientation △inter-sector cooperation △citizen participation foundation △democratic operation—and 10 detailed criteria, applying these criteria for the first time in this designation.

Meanwhile, based on this designation result, the city plans to establish an exchange and cooperation system among collaborative intermediary support organizations and to systematically implement policies to expand citizen participation, including the promotion of joint projects and capacity-building support.

Park Wan-ki, private co-chair of the committee, said, "This designation is a process of confirming the direction of collaborative governance together and creating a framework for solidarity. We expect that the experience accumulated by each organization in the field will be connected with each other, further expanding citizen participation."

Mayor Park Seung-won stated, "When the expertise and experience of each intermediary support organization are connected with each other, citizen participation becomes greater. We will support the collaborative governance structure in which citizens and administration work together to develop and implement policies so that it can be stably established throughout Gwangmyeong City."