The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) launched the online Cultural Partnership Initiative (CPI) for 60 experts in the fields of culture, arts and cultural industry from 5 partner countries (Lao PDR, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Vietnam) of the New Southern and Northern Policies for 8 weeks from 2 November until 25 December.

As part of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects, the MCST has been running the CPI by inviting experts in culture, arts and cultural industry to Korea and providing opportunities for professional training for 3~5 months to strengthen cultural capacity of the participating countries. Since its inauguration in 2005, 1,202 CPI alumni (from 105 countries) have been trained as of 2019, and are actively participating in the cultural policymaking process in their home countries.

The trainees this year will participate in common training session on theories critical for planning public cultural projects, and sectoral training session provided by Korean cultural agencies.

The sectoral training offers practice sessions and case studies which will be useful in planning and implementing projects in relevant fields such as contemporary performances, publication, film industry, cultural products and popular music. In particular, cultural policy measures and major projects that have been designed to cope with the digital transition in Korea will be presented to help the partner countries hit by COVID-19 in planning public cultural projects.

After the completion of the training, outstanding proposal will be selected among the project proposals submitted by the trainees, and consultation and funding will be provided for project execution. The trainees will experience a compressed but practical version of the entire process of cultural industry, from project development to actual implementation.

In order to enhance effectiveness of the training, the MCST builds cooperative network between local cultural agencies in Korea and partner countries, while developing and providing materials suitable for online training environment. Such material and system will continue to be utilized for bilateral cultural cooperation even after the training has been completed.

The officer in charge of CPI at MCST stated that the training is anticipated to contribute to capacity building of cultural administrators and professionals, alleviation of social problems and cultural development in 5 partner countries of the New Southern and Northern Policies.