Collaborative Ecosystem

Collaborative efforts and partnerships across different scales to achieve liveability (Centre for Liveable Cities)

Singapore as a city and nation has evolved over the decades, and the ways in which the government engages the residents of Singapore have also changed. Extensive collaboration has been increasingly emphasised in Singapore’s approach to tackle evolving complex global challenges. The government has promoted collective stewardship of issues and co-ownership of solutions, including lifestyle and behavioural shifts, to ensure long-term success. Singapore also seeks to forge strong partnerships across different scales of engagement — including local, regional and international — to mobilise resources, cross-domain knowledge and expertise to tackle and overcome wicked problems. 

Brief Context of Singapore's Collaborative Efforts

With the proliferation of social media and new sources of information, there has been a shift in how residents view the world and form their opinions. There is also the positive belief among residents that social media empowers them to become stewards of natural and other resources by providing them with platforms to hold people in power accountable for their actions. At the same time, there has been a parallel trend of Singaporeans wanting to become more engaged in shaping the policies that affect their living environment.  

The first ever Ground-up Initiative Study, sponsored by Singapore’s Tote Board and undertaken by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre in 2022, estimated that Singapore has about 450 active ground-up groups, many of which emerged during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also found that the majority of those who started the groups were individuals aged 35 or below, indicating that younger residents are driving their formation. 

The government has recognised residents’ increasing desire to play a more active role as stewards of Singapore’s future direction and limited resources. As such, there has been a conscious effort to move away from top-down approaches towards a more consultative and collaborative ecosystem of governance. 

Principles of Collaborative Ecosystem

Guiding Singapore’s approach towards collaborative governance are two principles — collective stewardship as a foundation for transformative collaborations and forging strong international partnerships. 

Principle 1: Collective Stewardship as a Foundation for Transformative Collaborations

The community is increasingly involved in steering sustainability in Singapore (Unsplash)

A key feature in the evolution of Singapore’s new collaborative ecosystem is the partnership between residents and the government as co-stewards of the nation’s shared future. Over the years, government agencies have actively involved the community in areas such as addressing climate change, nature conservation, and in preserving and shaping the development of key activity nodes in urban spaces. The Forward SG exercise is a recent example that illustrates this principle well. Launched in June 2022, Forward SG was conducted over a period of 16 months, and solicited inputs from more than 200,000 Singaporeans through 275 partnerships and engagement sessions, as well as surveys, roadshows and digital platforms. This culminated in the publishing of the Forward SG Report on 27 October 2023, which articulates how the government will work with residents to refresh the national social compact for Singapore’s path ahead. 

The growing emphasis on a collaborative approach has pushed the government to adopt less top-down mechanisms such as economic instruments and legislation to achieve behavioural change. This is because such measures can be ineffective unless they impose substantial costs or yield large benefits—and even if they are effective, there are limits to the punitive measures that can be meted out for offences such as littering. As a result, education and engagement programmes have become increasingly important levers in influencing public behaviour.  

Within the environmental context, the government has also taken the approach of utilising nudges to shape public sentiment and encourage civic consciousness, as they offer an effective yet affordable and less intrusive way of getting people to adopt environmentally friendly behaviours. The use of nudges helps to overcome the social, cognitive and physical barriers often unaccounted for by traditional policy tools by highlighting the practical benefits of sustainable choices, tapping into social norms, and redesigning the physical environment to make these choices easier and more accessible. 

Principle 2: Forging Strong Partnerships Beyond a City’s Boundaries

Cities can achieve more by connecting with partners across different scales, from local to global networks (Unsplash)

Even as Singapore’s local governance moves towards more citizen-centred collaborations, in an increasingly fraught international environment, there has been greater recognition that Singapore would be well-served by stepping up its partnerships beyond its national boundaries. 

Singapore continues to work with its neighbouring countries and cities on mutually beneficial collaborations, such as the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone which was established to enable freer movement of people and strengthen the business ecosystem within the region. Singapore has also forged partnerships with its close regional neighbours on the Lao PDR–Thailand–Malaysia–Singapore Power Integration Project, a pathfinder project aimed at enhancing regional power connectivity and energy security in Southeast Asia.  

Singapore also works with countries further afield, and extensively within international partnerships in areas on climate action, smart city innovation, as well as urban and nature sustainability. For instance, the Digital Government Exchange is a key platform in Singapore's international engagement efforts, bringing together global public sector leaders and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank and World Economic Forum to discuss pressing topics around digital government services and share best practices. Singapore’s National Parks Board also worked with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as the Global Partnership on Local and Subnational Action for Biodiversity, to jointly update the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity in 2021, which has been adopted by 39 city governments worldwide to evaluate and monitor the progress of their biodiversity conservation efforts.