In 2012, Singapore celebrated
World Water Day with 15 events across the
island, all run by the PUB, the national water
agency. In the following year, the number
of events dropped to 11, and by 2014,
there were just five big events.
But this year, the number of events for
World Water Day jumped to 350. The celebrations,
which ran for a month, also attracted
400,000 – a record turnout.
This achievement was largely due to
a new approach in organising the celebrations,
says Mr George Madhavan, Director,
3P Network at the PUB. Instead of just
inviting its partners to attend the events
on one day, the PUB asked grassroots organisations,
schools, non-governmental
organisations, companies and public agencies
to organise events on their own in
March with the PUB’s support.
“By taking a step back, we’re allowing
the community and society to take a step
forward,” he says.
In taking that “step back”, Mr Madhavan
was applying what he had learnt
from a Civil Service College (CSC) workshop
that he attended in 2013. Known as
the New Synthesis (NS) Lab, the workshop
introduced a framework that guides
public administrators like Mr Madhavan
in reframing issues and resources within
a broader context, identifying other parties
that they can work with, and exploring
how best they can be engaged.
Challenging the conventional
The workshops are led by Ms Jocelyne
Bourgon, CSC Senior Visiting Fellow,
who developed the NS framework. She
has facilitated workshops in Singapore and
around the world for public officers to apply
the framework to real-life issues.
Over her years in the Canadian public
service, Ms Bourgon observed a growing
gap between “conventional ideas about
public administration and the reality faced
by practitioners”.
Conventional ideas are thinking
that “government can do it all” or do
things best, or being content with what
has worked so far. But the reality is, relationships
between governments and
citizens are changing. Citizens today
want a bigger say in policy matters, and
contribute to shaping issues and public
policy challenges.
To bridge this gap, Ms Bourgon drew
from public administration practices, academic
disciplines, past civil service reforms
and the “reality of practice” to create the
NS framework.
The framework is made up of four
“lenses”: positioning, leveraging, engaging
and synthesising.
Positioning is reframing an organisation’s
purpose, issues and contributions
within a wider context of societal results.
An example is when a transport group
moves from thinking of its role as just
building roads to connecting people and
places. “The possibilities open up,” explains
Ms Bourgon. “Do I celebrate more
miles of asphalt or better connectivity?”
In the case of the PUB, it repositioned
itself as a facilitator of World Water Day
events, rather than the sole organiser.
Leveraging recognises that the state
has a lot of authority but there is a limit
to what it can do. A wise government uses
that authority to lever the collective capacity
of society.
Engaging others is necessary because
whatever the government does creates
some dependency among citizens, and
may erode the “natural resilience of
people, community and families”, says
Ms Bourgon.
NS Lab participant Mr Lim Wee Sen,
from the Land Transport Authority’s
Community Partnership Division, offers
this example: His team works with Neighbourhood
Committees for private estate
roads. Together, they encourage and provide
options for residents to resolve parking
issues amicably on their own, instead
of reporting every matter to authorities.
Synthesis is “putting all the lenses together”,
says Ms Bourgon, to constantly
reframe roles, issues, and capabilities to
achieve better results for society, not just
for the organisation.
Engaging well
During the NS Lab workshops, participants
shared several real issues their agencies
face, and discussed how to apply the
four “lenses” to them.
Something that resonated with Mr
Madhavan was the reminder that engaging
people means getting them to commit
their time and effort.
“Once they find that you’re not sincere
and just going through the motions,
it creates a lot of mistrust in the system,”
he says. “So we become very selective and
purposeful when doing engagement.”
For example, the specialised topic of
flood alleviation calls for an expert panel.
“But if it’s about how we can better
communicate with the public, alerting them to
potential flooding, then we can consult a
wider audience.”
The PUB also engages the community
for their Active, Beautiful and Clean
waterway projects, which are sited in
the heartlands.
“We engage them early, before the
design is cooked. Whatever requests they
have, it’s easier to incorporate,” says Mr
Madhavan. If an area has many schools,
the PUB might look at adding many learning
features. For older folk, it might be
plots of land for community gardening.
“When the members of the community
see that their ideas are incorporated...
there’s a better sense of ownership... and
they will take better care of it.”
Similarly, by roping in its partners for
World Water Day, the PUB got “a much
better outcome with fewer resources, and
also built ownership, trust, resilience and
sustainability in doing events,” he says.
Tying it all together
On synthesising, “the magic is in how you
bring it all together... to rise above your
agency’s results or KPIs, and focus on societal
results,” says Ms Bourgon.
Doing this takes constant rethinking
at all individual, organisational
and institutional levels. She cites Our
Singapore Conversation as a significant
step in having a broad conversation about
the balance that will best serve the country
going forward.
But there is no “recipe” for doing this,
she adds, as it then becomes another convention.
Instead, she advises reflecting as
and when needed to avoid being content
with what works today.
“It’s the constant search for balance
that ensures that you can continue
to evolve,” says Ms Bourgon. “It comes
with practice.”