Seoul Shares Successful Policies with Addis Ababa

A 22-member delegation featuring high-ranking officials and led by the Mayor of Addis Ababa, Diriba Kuma, visited Seoul to benchmark Seoul’s policies. From the delegation, which included a variety of members, from the mayor, to working-level officials, to university professors, Addis Ababa will systematically become familiar with Seoul’s sustainable urban planning policies and the problem solving tools used by Seoul, with the goal of using Seoul’s policies as a comprehensive solution to actual policy challenges in Ethiopia. With the education session during this trip as a beginning, the city plans to expand the visits to Seoul for policy education programs to all city officials by 2018.

Seoul held educational sessions to highlight and share its policy success cases and provided a customized program of capacity building for the delegation led by the Mayor of Addis Ababa over five days from August 29 to September 2. The education programs were successful thanks to the active involvement of Addis Ababa and support from the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD). In order to establish and implement comprehensive urban development plans, Addis Ababa examined city studied development cases of cities around the world for several years, finally selecting Seoul as a role model for smart and sustainable urban development. During these education sessions, Seoul introduced the process of master plan establishment and implementation according to current urban development processes, and provided ample examples.

The curriculum consisted of a basic education of Seoul’s history and urban planning, focusing on transportation, housing, environment, and waste, themes requested by Addis Ababa. In addition, the curriculum covered comprehensive and systematic contents, including measures for creating organization, communication with citizens, and civil cooperation, which are necessary for the implementation of policies.

The delegation visited sites of major policies and projects, including Cheonggyecheon stream, Transport Operation and Information Service (TOPIS), and Mapo Resource Recovery Facility, and experienced the bus transfer system of Seoul by using the public transportation by themselves. On Friday, September 2, the last day of the education program, the delegation led by the Mayor of Addis Ababa visited Seoul City Hall and discussed continuous cooperative measures for urban development plans with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon. Seoul and Addis Ababa signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to carry out follow-up education programs.

Seoul has shared 38 successful policies with 32 cities including Addis Ababa. In addition, Seoul is cooperating with the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, such as Asian Development Bank, to share policies that help developing countries grow. In addition, Seoul is working hard to meet its Sustainable development goals (SDG) through bilateral and multilateral cooperation.