Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you
1. I am honoured to have the opportunity to address all of you here.
2. We have seen the rise and the growth of mega-cities in Asia over the past 50 years. This has been spurred on by relentless pace of economic development and progress in our Asian cities. Development inevitably leads to greater urbanization, with more and more of our people leaving their rural homes to work in our cities.
3. While such development brings greater wealth and resources, to our various cities, regions and countries, such rapid urbanization is not without challenges. As leaders, we are called upon to provide the necessary infrastructure, facilities, roads, utilities, buildings, roads to ensure a good living and working environment for all, as well as to facilitate commerce and the exchange of goods and services. I think in this respect, Asian leaders have done a good job and are committed to further improving the quality of living in their cities through the upgrading of infrastructure and public services. Our economic growth record is also testament to how we have been able to build up our cities efficiently and effectively.
4. While we have done well in the development hardware in the past, I think the challenge moving forward will be how we can develop our software. In Singapore we lament the loss of the kampong spirit. In the old days, we enjoyed a strong degree of neighbourliness in our villages. Neighbours would know each other by first name, help each other where the need arose, live and play together. Members of each community would come together in a spirit of gotong royong to make their community a better place. Such friendships would cut across race, language and age.
5. Nowadays as we upgrade into spanking new housing apartments built by our Housing Development Board, we have some how lost the warmth, personal touch and connections of our old kampongs. While we have improved ourselves materially, it seems that we have lost something along the way.
6. The loss of this community spirit is an inevitable process of development. We developed this kampong spirit in the past, because of the strong need to depend on one another for our every day needs. Women had to rely on each other to draw and carry water on the well. For security, members had look out for each other to make their homes safe. In today's day and age, modern taps and sanitation bring running waters directly to our houses. For security, we lock ourselves behind rod iron gates. Whilst we keep out robbers, we keep out our friends as well.
7. Singapore's situation is certainly not unique, and I believe that many countries and cities are grappling with this gradual loss of community spirit as they develop. I think this is the most critical challenge that leaders of megacities face in the new century - how do we create the software necessary for cities to be the choice community for all citizens.
8. I would like to take this opportunity to share with all of you here our experiences in community building here in Singapore. Despite the uniqueness of our circumstances, I hope that our sharing may be relevant to the experience of other cities. After that I would like to draw certain lessons from our past experience.
9. 10 years ago, Community Development Councils were set in Singapore to provide leadership at the local administration level in areas of community bonding, social assistance and connecting citizens. Unlike Town Councils, which were set up to oversee hardware issues, such as the maintenance and use of common space and facilities, conservancy and the built environment; CDCs were set up to oversee software issues—how do we bring our people closer, how do we help those in need, how do we make a community a caring one.
10. Over the years, CDCs have grown organically, progressively taking over a wider and wider range of social schemes which used to be administered by centralised government agencies. In taking over these roles, the CDCs have ensured faster, more targeted delivery of social services. In doing so, the CDCs have brought assistance, closer to those who need them. Being closer to the ground, the CDCs have also done so without losing that human touch in helping the needy. Working in the community, and supported by committed volunteers, the CDCs are better placed than a central government bureaucracy in the delivery of social services.
11. The CDCs have also been nimble, responding quickly to exigencies of the day. In 2002, the CDCs set up CareerLink Centres to provide employment assistance to unemployed Singaporeans. Helping the chronically unemployed was something which was entirely new to us - before then, we never had a problem of long term unemployment and we never had to do deal with the problem. Within less than a year, we developed the expertise to help the unemployed, providing them with the requisite counselling, training, and mentoring to help them land a job.
12. The CDCs have been innovative, daring to try new ideas even when faced with age-old problems of poverty and destitution. Since 2006, CDCs implemented Workfare, a social assistance which rewards those who are willing and able to work, whilst supporting those who are unable to do so. In doing so, the CDCs have tried to reiterate the value of work and the importance of empowering people to be self-reliant in the long term.
13. The CDCs have also been able to bring organisations and people together to meet the challenges of the day. In a world still reeling and suffering from \inter-ethnic violence and distrust, CDCs have played a critical role in bringing people of all races and religion together to work on joint social programmes and causes. Working with various racial self-help groups, religious organisations, CDCs have identified areas of need within the community where groups can jointly collaborate. In working together, these organisations speak with their actions, how our communal values transcend race, language and religion.
14. Ten years on, the CDCs have become an important and indispensable element of our community. The roles of the CDCs will continue to change along and together as our communities grow, meeting and overcoming new challenges along the way.
15. I would like to take this opportunity to draw a couple of lessons from our experience over these 5 years. I hope that these lessons will also be relevant to the work of leaders across various Asian cities and communities gathered here today.
Values
16. A community can only be built upon a set of shared values. I have highlighted earlier the loss of community spirit that accompanies urbanisation and growth. I have been careful to point out that this community spirit is not due to an erosion in community values, but rather to lack of opportunities to manifest these values. I would like to believe that it is not that people care less, or couldn't care less, but that people do not have the opportunities to show how much they care.
17. Here at the CDCs, we are acutely aware of the importance of articulating these values through our work. One of our Singapore 21 values is that all Singaporeans are important and all Singaporeans matter. This value underpins our social assistance work, our efforts to reach out to children in low income families, our programmes to encourage greater social service voluntarism. It is with these values that we invite volunteers to help us, community organisations to collaborate with us. In helping us out and in working with us, we allow these individuals and organisations to manifest these values and show with their actions how much these values mean to them.
18. Values are important, because leaders can no longer rely on administrative fiat and authority to solve many of the problems going forward. Many of these problems will require the moral suasion of leaders to galvanise our communities into action.
Bottoms Up
19. Through our experience, we have learnt that the most sustainable changes are bottom up initiatives. Hence, it is important that we move away from trying to effect change from a top down approach, as we may be used to. Identifying bottom up initiatives require us to have a good understanding of the resources on the ground, the leaders of the community and the networks available. Allowing these initiatives to flourish requires governmental bodies to provide the necessary space for allow NGOs, Grassroots organisations and individuals to play a constructive role within the community.
20. Here in Singapore, all CDCs have found it useful to set aside a substantial amount of funding that local grassroots organisations, volunteer welfare organisations, and even individuals can tap on to spearhead programmes which benefit the community. Supporting such bottom up initiatives however goes beyond just providing the requisite monetary support to set up these initiatives. Very often, the best support the CDC can provide in nurturing these initiatives, is to provide the appropriate networks, link them up with the right partners and create collaborative platforms for these organisations to tap on.
Responsiveness
21. Many of the challenges in our community require immediate responses. To be nimble and responsive, leaders need to keep their ear to the ground. This entails having the patience to listen and the willingness to collect feedback, as well as setting up the systems that facilitate this process.
22. CDCs regularly organise district meetings, feedback sessions, focus group discussions and networking with GROs and community groups because this is an important part of our work in the community. We take whatever feedback, suggestions and even criticisms seriously, acting on them constructively in planning the appropriate programmes to address the problems and issues raised.
Integrated Approach
23. Many of the new challenges faced by leaders in mega-cities require an integrated and concerted approach in tackling these problems. This is especially difficult as we have developed a large bureaucratic agencies in our mega-cities. Theses agencies are probably very efficient and effective in addressing the day-to-day operations in a large city. However, most of these agencies sit in individual silos which make them rather ineffective in solving problems which fall through the cracks or issues which involve multiple agencies.
24. Just take the case of social assistance here in Singapore. An effective, social assistance programme entails not just financial assistance, employment assistance, counseling and financial literacy programme, as well as educational support. Before the advent of the CDCs, such social programmes were administered by separate ministries, Ministry of Community Development Youth and the Sports, Ministry of Manpower and Ministry of Education. Here are the CDC, what we have done is to integrate all these programmes together. Hence, we have integrated financial and employment assistance. The CDC officer who helps the needy is cross-trained to provide employment assistance and job counseling as well as to provide social assistance in the form of financial support or referrals to other social agencies. The officer is also empowered to approve education subsidies for kindergarten, student care and child care. Such integration allows us to more holistically meet the needs of vulnerable Singaporeans.
25. The challenges of the future will require more of such integrated solutions. Leaders will have to work across existing structures, bring down organisational barriers and create informal structures and organisations to provide the right solutions.
Putting Words into Action
26. In building up the software, we must manifest our words in action. It would be meaningless if we championed social harmony when some people go hungry on empty stomachs. This is why here in Singapore, the CDCs see their social assistance work as an integral part of the community bonding efforts.
27. What is called for is pragmatic leadership, a leadership that says what it does and does what it says. We have to be value-driven and action-oriented. In addressing issues, we have to put our money where our mouth is, devoting the necessary manpower, funding, and resources to bear on these challenges. It is only in doing so, that we can deliver the results that our constituents, residents and citizens deserve.
Conclusion
28. I hope that I have been able to impress on you that leadership in this new age of our mega-cities, will require us to focus on not just on putting in place the appropriate hardware but developing the right software as well.
29. While providing the facilities and amenities for people to live, the opportunities for people to work, we want to create communities which care, neighbourhoods which we can bring up our children and places where we can truly call home. I wish all of us here the best in building those cities.
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