Workshop
Toward New Public Policies in the COVID-19 Era

In the opening session, Dr. Bernhard Seliger, representative of HSF Korea, shared his opening remarks welcoming the participants and Prof. Tomasz Wierzbowski, Adjunct professor at  Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, acted as a moderator in the first session titled “Public Policies on the Korean Peninsula and the COVID-19 Pandemic – An International Comparison.”

Dr. Seliger started the session sharing his political insights about the ecological factors of risks in South Korea. He further introduced the common disasters and risk management in both Koreas, pointing out that South Korea’s public administration (and its organization and technology) helps the country largely master natural risks and diseases contrary to the North. In this sense, he mentioned a workshop in 2019 that HSF Korea participated in China regarding the African Swine Fever (ASF), which brought together the two Koreas, China, Germany and other countries on disease control. In terms of North Korea, Dr. Seliger talked about its new disaster risk reduction strategy which contributes to raising awareness, technology development and emergency response system. Lastly, he discussed South Korea’s risk awareness, especially the impact of the Sewol disaster which significantly raised South Koreans’ risk awareness and attitudes and contributed to building “a major factor in preparing South Korea’s population for the outbreak of COVID-19 in various ways.”

Presentation from Prof. Ralph Wrobel, professor at West Saxon University of Applied Science, followed with his topic on “Public Policy and Corona in Europe.” Prof. Wrobel mainly shared about the German experience on COVID-19, giving detailed statistics regarding the spread of the virus. COVID-19 became highly severe in Germany in October 2020 reaching a maximum of 33,000 cases a day after its first hit in March with 6,000 infections a day. Although Germany is working on the process with trial and error, the public views the COVID-19 measures as chaotic as each federal state carries differ restrictions. Yet, he stated that structural support for affected population groups is taking place, despite the failure of the COVID-19 app and the vaccination campaign due to low participation.

Prof. Rüdiger Frank, professor at Vienna University, took over with his presentation on North Korea’s expected policies and its future outlook. He gave the basis of North Korea’s current economic status, saying, “North Korea’s economy is suffering from a long-term structural crisis and mid-term challenges because of comprehensive economic sanctions, and on top of that, there is a short-term threat now due to the pandemic.” As an answer to a question on whether North Korea will be able to deal with the pandemic, Prof. Frank doubted this referring that North Korea’s trade has been declining since the sanctions strengthened in 2013, exports collapsed in 2015, and the gap between export and import is widening. In the end, he shared insight on the expected actions of North Korea in 2021, that the North will be more open to talks with South Korea along with more economic cooperation with China.

The second session followed, under the topic of “COVID-19 Era: Digital Technology, Open Innovation, and Consumption.” Presentations from Prof. Soon Ae Chun, professor at City University, Prof. Jin Hyo Joseph Yun, tenured principal researcher at DGIST and principal professor of Open Innovation academy, and Prof. Jaehoon Lee, assistant professor of Marketing at Florida International University took place.

A full video of the conference can be found here. 

You can check out our Facebook post regarding the workshop here.