Cultural impact assessment


When
2022
Who
Ministry of culture, sports and tourism, korea culture & tourism institute
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Description of the policy/measure

Cultural impact assessment is a policy assessment based on the framework act on culture, which prescribes the rights of the citizens and the responsibilities of the state concerning culture. it is a system that evaluates the impact of public policies planned by the central and local governments on the quality of life of the citizens from a cultural perspective, and is promoted with the aim of ‘spreading the social value of culture.’ cultural impact assessment began in earnest in 2014, the year after the introduction of the grounding clause in the 「framework act on culture」. after a pilot assessment, the main annual assessment has been carried out since 2016. the main purposes of the cultural impact assessment are social acceptability through the implementation of public policies that considers cultural influences, sustainable growth, spread of cultural values through 'policy culturalization', and improvement of people's cultural competence and quality of life. in order to evaluate the impact of public policy on the people from a cultural perspective, the evaluation area was divided into three categories: basic cultural rights, cultural identity, and cultural development. each area consists of two evaluation indicators. one of the evaluation indicators for cultural development is the "impact of public policy on cultural diversity." this evaluates the influence relationship on whether the planned policy project affects the cultural uniformity of the region or the cultural activities of local minority groups, and whether the policy project leaves room for marginalized groups in cultural consumption. based on its purpose, the cultural impact evaluation is divided into self-assessment and professional assessment. the self-assessment is divided into diagnostic evaluation and abbreviated evaluation, and the professional assessment is divided into basic evaluation, in-depth evaluation, and strategic evaluation. the self-evaluation is done by a central or local government official using a checklist to self-examine the impact of the planned public policy on culture. the professional evaluation is utilized to evaluate the cultural impact of public policy conducted by a third-party with expertise.

Results achieved

In 2014 and 2015, nine public policy plans were assessed through pilot projects. the system began in earnest from 2016 to 2020, carrying out 146 evaluations, with a total of 155 evaluations of public policy. in each type of evaluation target, 74 cases for urban regeneration projects, 45 cases for cultural city and specialized projects, 13 cases for cultural heritage restoration and utilization projects, and 23 cases for other projects were carried out. so far, six government ministries and 142 local governments, including the ministry of culture, sports and tourism, cultural heritage administration, the ministry of land, infrastructure and transport, the ministry of education, the ministry of agriculture, food and rural affairs, and the small and medium business administration have participated. in order to conduct their own assessment, local governments including seoul special metropolitan city, gyeonggi province, gyeongsangnam province, changwon-city, and busan metropolitan city have enacted related ordinances and conducted their own cultural impact assessments. the seoul special metropolitan city conducted a self-evaluation of a total of four cases from 2018 to 2019, gyeonggi province a total of seven cases from 2018 to 2020, and changwon city conducted one case in 2020.

Financial resources allocated to the policy

1,403 million won, 1.07 million dollars /as of 2021

Evaluation of the policy/measure

With the start of the main assessment in 2016, the cultural impact assessment system achieved positive progress in pre-diagnosing, considering, and applying cultural influences, including cultural diversity, to major policies and projects of six ministries and 142 local governments. however, as the scale of the cultural impact assessment system and the types of public policies subject for evaluation are diversified, it is time to develop specialized indicators, refine and systematize evaluation methods, and improve the evaluation guidelines for each type.