By Dawn Yip and Nicholas Thomas, Singapore Partnerships Office, Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth, Singapore.

This "My Take" was written for Designing for inclusive engagement, Trend #9 in the Government Trends 2022 report.

View the Government Trends 2022 report here >

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COVID-19 increased the need for innovative citizen engagement techniques. During the peak of the pandemic in June 2020, Singapore’s government launched Emerging Stronger Conversations (ESC) for citizens to reflect on their pandemic experience, share their aspirations and ideas for Singapore emerging from the pandemic, and translate their concerns into action.

The ESC provided a safe and inclusive space for citizens to come together virtually in small groups, via an interactive digital platform to participate in facilitated conversations. Anyone could register and join these conversations virtually.

Between June and December 2020, 4,400 participants joined 88 ESC sessions and another 12,500 citizens participated in online surveys. We worked hard to draw in diverse participants in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, profession, and language preference. A special effort was made to reach out to people with disabilities.

Trained facilitators led the discussions, which were configured in both large and small groups. This ensured that citizens had the space and time to share their views and aspirations. The key component in these sessions was listening. Participants were asked three broad, open-ended questions:

a) Share your experience of the pandemic including the issues and challenges you faced, b) your aspiration(s) for Singapore emerging stronger from COVID, c) one action you can take to realize this aspiration.

The input gathered through these sessions and surveys was organized into 15 themes, including social support, jobs and the economy, technology, governance, health, and civic engagement. In February 2021, Singapore’s government created a website to take stock of the conversations.

The ESCs are only the first step toward creating strong and sustained partnerships that can translate citizen engagement into action. To date, we’ve formed 30 Singapore Together Alliances for Action (AfAs), cross-sector collaborations assembling an ecosystem of citizens and representatives of the public and private sectors to address specific challenges. The AfAs are making steady progress on the key themes that emerged from the ESCs, such as a mentoring alliance that provides mentoring opportunities to help our youths navigate educational, career, and life transitions.

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