Hwaseong Special City Operates 'Conflict Management Executive Expert Course' for Civil Servants

Hwaseong Special City (Mayor Jung Myung-geun) is operating a 'Conflict Management Executive Expert Course' for civil servants in partnership with Dankook University's Dispute Resolution Research Center to strengthen proactive response capabilities to public conflicts.

The city signed a business agreement with Dankook University's G-RISE Project Group on June 29 to cooperate in the field of public conflict management. As the first project under the agreement, the city will fully launch the 'Conflict Management Executive Expert Course' for Hwaseong Special City civil servants beginning August 12.

This course was designed to systematically enhance the practical competencies of civil servants so they can effectively respond to increasingly complex and diverse public conflicts in administrative field operations.

Conflicts can arise as various stakeholder interests collide in diverse policy fields including development, environment, transportation, welfare, and public acceptance. Accordingly, the importance of competencies to diagnose and prevent conflict factors in advance and rationally mediate them—rather than merely addressing conflicts after they occur—is growing. Through this training, the city plans to cultivate public conflict experts within the organization capable of performing such roles.

The training will be conducted for 29 civil servants from Hwaseong Special City. Beginning with an opening ceremony on August 12, it will run for approximately four months with a total of 16 sessions spanning around 60 hours. Faculty members from Dankook University's Dispute Resolution Research Center and experts in related fields will participate as instructors, delivering education that encompasses both theory and practical cases.

The curriculum is structured to allow participating civil servants to progressively learn from basic understanding of public conflicts to mediation competencies required in actual field situations. In particular, the course emphasizes helping participants move away from viewing public conflicts as individual civil complaints or one-time issues to recognizing them as core tasks that must be systematically managed throughout the entire policy formation and implementation process.

Kang Rae-hyang, Administrator of Administrative Comprehensive Observation, stated, "Conflict management is an important factor that directly impacts public trust in administration and stable policy implementation. Through this training, I hope civil servants will develop competencies to identify the causes of conflicts in advance and rationally mediate diverse stakeholder interests, leading to the establishment of an administrative culture in which citizens and administration work together to create solutions."