Digital-government training for Philippine officials

South Korea's interior ministry said Tuesday that a training program for 15 Philippine central and local government officials is under way, sharing Korean experience in digital government and public administration.

The course, conducted with the Korea International Cooperation Agency, or KOICA, from Aug. 25 through Sept. 4, is the second year of an official development assistance project that runs from 2025 through 2027 at the Philippine government's request.

The ministry said the staged program supports goals under the Philippine Development Plan for 2023-2028 and seeks to strengthen officials' capacity to deliver digital administrative services and carry out policies.

This year's curriculum follows requests from the Philippine government and covers good governance, digital government, knowledge sharing and teaching methods, case presentations and action-plan development. Good-governance sessions will examine Korean local government structures and decentralization initiatives, along with policy decisions and public-service delivery based on resident participation and public-private cooperation. Digital-government sessions will cover public-service innovation using artificial intelligence and information and communications technology, as well as smart-city operations and possible applications to local issues in the Philippines.

"I hope this training will help Philippine officials adapt Korea's successful examples of government innovation and digital government to their administrative environment and improve administrative services for citizens," said Park Dae-min, acting head of the Local Government Officials Development Institute.

Participants will make field visits to the Korea Food Industry Cluster Promotion Agency, Jeonju Municipal Library and Bucheon's Smart City Integrated Operations Center. At the Jeonju library, they will review service-improvement practices based on resident participation, community links and analysis of user data. The program will also assess Philippine conditions and policy needs linked to action-plan themes developed in its first year, before expert consultations specify implementation tasks for each institution.