Seoul Metropolitan Government created the International Cooperation Account of the External Cooperation Fund in 2005. The fund is based on the Seoul Metropolitan Government Ordinance of the Establishment and Operation of the External Cooperation Fund for the purpose of promoting exchanges and cooperation with the cities and local governments of foreign countries.
As the training institution of SMG, SHRDC(Seoul Human Resource Development Center) is in charge of the operation of SMG Policy Training for Foreign Municipality Officials which is one of the major projects of the External cooperation fund. The targets of the training are the public officials from foreign municipalities such as sister and friendship cities, METROPOLIS member cities, and cities wishing to benchmark Seoul.
With the development of digitization, online non-face-to-face mode training has become the new normal. However, offline programs are still preferred over online ones, especially in international urban policy training. Because offline training allows more empirical training experiences such as field trips and in-person discussions.
To this end, SHRDC international training program is designed to ensure organized linkage between online and offline training modes while making self-paced online training a prerequisite to participation in offline training.