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Singapore and The Netherlands: Innovators driven by Scarcity

 16 March 2016
 3.00pm – 5.00pm. Registration from 2.30pm, seated by 3.00pm 
 MND Auditorium

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Resources

Lecture Poster (PDF: 415KB)
Lecture Report (PDF: 882KB)
Lecture Transcript (PDF: 335KB)

Lecture Videos

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Synopsis

Both Singapore and The Netherlands are highly urbanized countries, dealing with limited space and limited resources. In short: the need is always bigger than the produce. Both countries however are top 10 players in the Global Innovation Index. Is scarcity the driver for innovation? And how do like-minded countries deal with Scarcity? How does it lead to innovation? The lecture will focus on the comparison between two countries in the fields of water, agro food and energy – in relation to urbanization and spatial planning. It will give you deeper understanding in the drivers of innovation and the ways small, urbanized countries deal with complex public issues that are deeply intertwined.

Lecture Report

“A process of collaboration has to involve all from the beginning. We start with professionals first all the time...(and end up with) half-baked or not fully fleshed-out solutions that you need buy-in from. That’s not collaboration, that’s an insult. If we can’t close the gap between professionals and people, we will fail.”

 

Building urban resilience is a constant challenge and demands collaborations that start from the ground up, says Henk Ovink, the Netherlands’ Special Envoy for International Water Affairs.

 

At a CLC lecture, Ovink spoke of his experiences in environmental management, including working with more than 500 local and professional groups in New York as part of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force.

 

“The collaboration of federal agencies, local and state governments, public and private partners, design teams, innovators, NGOs and activists had transformative capacities (for the region),” he said.

 

“The collaborative process is about getting a better understanding amongst all, (including) among professionals of what real local needs are, to inform designs and innovations.”

 

Resilience to issues such as extreme weather and climate change must be culturally ingrained within a society to be sustainable, added Ovink, citing examples from his homeland’s long history of water management. And for collaborations to have a lasting effect, they have to be truly inclusive.

 

“If you take collaboration seriously, you have to be able to be vulnerable at the beginning and (have) at this table government, researchers, private sector that perhaps don’t work together...you also invite the others that normally would not be at the table, to inform the process. You need to create room in a political and policy process, for a little thinking out of the box, outside of legal frameworks, outside of policy barriers. You need to think of the past, as much as of the future, to inform current decision-making.”

 

Ovink noted four cornerstones of dealing with environmental issues: a long-term approach, funding through transparent, accountable benefit-cost analyses, inclusive collaborations and building capacity amongst institutions, individuals, NGOs, businesses and other groups.

 

“You need to… through research, get an understanding of inter-dependencies, vulnerabilities and opportunities. Long-term approach needs to be connected to short-term interventions, real projects on the ground. Funding only comes if you are transparent and accountable, so we need better benefit-cost analyses that can capture long-term resiliency questions.”

 

“Right now, we only have simple approaches that deal with short-term infrastructure, across the world we fail in monitoring and evaluation, learning and turning that feedback loop in,” he highlighted.

 

Ovink also raised the prospect of countries like the Netherlands and Singapore collaborating to work on problems in regions where expertise is lacking and sorely needed.

 

“A lot of the time, the vulnerable places in the world often do not have the capacity to rethink and invest, research and implement. Why don’t we work together towards that, and present collaborative solutions? Not so much to showcase how good we are, but to reach out a hand to the world and say, we want to be your partner in solving water crises because we can bring to bear the knowledge, experience we collectively have and bring that capacity for change not just in Singapore and the Netherlands, but around the world.”

 

Written by Alvin Chua.

 

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About the Speakers

 

 

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