On May 11, 2017, the Master’s Program in Public Policy, Vietnam Japan University hosted the workshop “Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy – Korean Experiences”. With the open sharing from two leading Korean professors – Prof. Hong, Jong-Ho and Prof. Yun, Sun-Jin from Seoul National University. Public policy students and workshop participants learned more about Korean experiences in environmental friendly business development and sustainable use of energy.
Dr. Hong, Jong Ho is currently a professor of economics at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University. His teaching and research activities focus on environmental economics and sustainable economics and policies.
He is the Vice Chairman of the East Asian Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, Vice Chairman of the Korea Economic Association, Deputy Director of the Asian Institute of Energy, Environment and Sustainability, Seoul National University.
Dr. Yun Sun-Jin is the Vice Dean at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University. She serves as Vice President of the Association for Environmental and Space Studies, the Korean Association for Environmental Sociology, the Korea Environmental Education Association, and the Korea Climate Change Research Association. She also acts as an editor of the “Development and Society,” an English-language journal published by the Institute for Social Development and Policy Research, Seoul National University.
Main research areas: energy policy, environmental policy, environmental sociology, environmental management, public land management, and environmental education.
Opening the workshop, Dr. Nguyen Thuy Anh – Director of the Master’s Program in Public Policy, introduced Professor Hong, Jong – Ho and Prof. Yun, Sun – Jin and expressed the expectations for the two speakers’ presentations in the workshop.
Subsequently, Prof. Hong, Jong – Ho discussed Korean environmental policies through different development stages. The discussion referred to the concepts that characterize sustainable economic development such as “green growth”, “green economy”, etc. In addition, the professor pointed out some factors to consider when assessing the feasibility of a policy, namely economic analysis of policy (comparing costs and benefits) and the environmental and social impact analysis of the policy. This was useful for master students of public policy. In this section, participants also joined Q&A session and discussions on the application of Korea’s experiences in Vietnam’s context.
Prof. Yun, Sun -Jin brought to the workshop another aspect of sustainable development, which is the sustainable use of energy and necessary policies in the context of global climate change. Presented by profound data and comparisons between Korea and other countries in the world such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, etc. Prof. Yun provided a panoramic view of sustainable energy use in Korea in the context of global climate change.
In the discussion session, answering a question by a public policy student on Korea’s strength in energy production when compared with Germany, a developed country in this area, Prof. Yun thought that nuclear power is Korea’s strength. The Professor also made some suggestions for Vietnam to exploit the potentials of the Mekong River – one of Vietnam’s geographical advantages.
At the end of the workshop, both Prof. Hong and Prof. Yun re-emphasized the importance of policy in sustainable development, particularly the relevance of policy to the real situations and the needs of the people and the country.
The two speakers, workshop participants as well as students took time for a photo.
Hopefully, with the lessons learned from such developed country as Korea, public policy students have gained more practical knowledge that can be applied to their coming thesis as well as contribute to the policy development of Vietnam in the future.
