[Global HR Forum 2011] ‘Seoul HR Initiative’: Action Plan to Improve Mankind's Quality of Life

‘Seoul HR Initiative’ 

Action Plan to Improve Mankind's Quality of Life

- Human resource development is the key to a prosperous future for mankind

 

Global HR Forum is a place of discussion for human resource experts in academia, business, and government. The speakers of this year’s forum agree that human resource development is the key to a prosperous future for mankind and plan announce the “Seoul HR Initiative” at the closing of the forum on Thursday.

 

The declaration will state foremost that global human resource development is a fundamental solution for improving mankind's quality of life and will eventually lead to global prosperity. It will also state that human resource development can only be achieved through worldwide collaboration and that experts in academia, business and government must all work together.

 

 

 

 

In order to follow through with the “Seoul HR Initiative,” attendees of the forum have come up with four action plans. The first of these is the development of a Global Human Resource Development (HRD) Competitiveness Index. The index aims to quantify the human resource policies of major countries. Seoul National University's Korea Human Resource Research Center and the forum’s two hosts -- the Korea Economic Daily and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET) -- will unveil the framework of the index at the forum and will launch a more robust model in the near future.

 

The second plan is nurturing a talented pool of individuals among the younger generation. Under the Global Leaders Program (GLP), a select group of universities and business schools will pick students to participate in the GLP whereupon students of the university will have the chance to study at other participating universities under exchange programs. The students will also get together annually on the sidelines of the forum. Representatives of the schools will meet at this year's forum to sign the exchange agreement. The GLP will receive the cooperation of governments where the universities are located as well as that of the World Bank and UNESCO. Some universities that are taking part in the GLP are Korea’s Yonsei University and Korea University; China’s Beijing University; the United Kingdom's Cambridge University; and Spain’s IE Business School.

 

The third plan, dubbed “Smart Education for All,” seeks to ask the World Bank and UNESCO to recommend that governments and other international organizations expand the operation of their information technology-based education platforms to share knowledge across regions.

 

The fourth plan is to institute a systemic mechanism to reflect issues related to poverty and social development at the forum. To this end, the forum plans to build a web site dedicated to development issues. The forum will also hold a development policy colloquium in Seoul one to two months ahead of the forum so that participants of the colloquium -- scholars, policymakers and civic activists -- may suggest an agenda for the forum. The forum also plans to hold the Seoul Development Debate on the sidelines of the colloquium whereby development experts will be invited to participate in a public two-on-two debate.