Interior minister signs social economy pacts with Spain, Senegal

South Korea's interior minister signed cooperation agreements on the social solidarity economy with Spain and Senegal during a visit to New York for a United Nations high-level meeting, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said Monday.

Yoon Ho-joong attended the UN high-level meeting on the social and solidarity economy from Sept. 24 to 26, where he joined ministers from 10 UN member states to discuss how the sector should develop. The meeting included talks on adopting a third UN resolution on the sector in 2027.

In his remarks, Yoon presented Korea's policy achievements, including the enactment of the Framework Act on the Social and Solidarity Economy and the establishment of a comprehensive plan. He introduced the "sunlight income village" model, in which residents form cooperatives and use revenue from solar power generation to run village buses and provide free meals to older residents, as an example of how the sector fills gaps in everyday services caused by population decline and aging.

Yoon also stressed the need to build a growth base for social economy enterprises through social finance and public procurement support, and said local governments must play a more active role and more young people should enter the field.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Yoon held bilateral talks with Yolanda Diaz Perez, Spain's second deputy prime minister and labor and social economy minister, and signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. He proposed that Spain, which enacted a social economy law in 2011, share experience with Korea, which is building an integrated support system after passing its own framework act. Under the agreement, the two countries will work together in nine areas, including legal and institutional improvement, policy development and joint research, measurement of social value, and the sector's contribution to the care economy and the green and digital transitions.

Yoon signed a similar agreement with Alioune Dione, Senegal's minister of microfinance and social and solidarity economy. He noted that Senegal leads social economy policy in Africa while Korea was the first Asian country to enact a framework act on the sector, and the two sides agreed to take leading roles in international social economy policy, including through a friendship group.

Yoon also met Li Junhua, UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, to discuss expanding cooperation in public administration and digital government into the social economy. The two agreed that the sector can narrow gaps within and between countries and contribute to sustainable development.

On Sept. 25, Yoon met Korea Society President Abraham Kim and Vice President Suh Ji-young, stressing that exchanges between Korea and the United States become broader and more durable when they take place in residents' daily lives. He proposed expanding exchanges so that social economy organizations, nonprofit groups and volunteer groups can share their experience in solving local problems.

"Good policies and examples are not the exclusive property of any one country but shared assets that the international community must develop together," Yoon said, adding that Korea will continue working closely with other countries and international organizations to advance international discussion of the social and solidarity economy.