ETHOS Issue 28
April 2025
Last updated 30 July 2026
ETHOS Issue 28, April 2025
This issue of ETHOS explores how Singapore's Public Service can strengthen collaboration across society amidst global challenges and declining public trust worldwide. While Singapore maintains relatively high government trust, we must harness our people's diverse energies and collective wisdom through meaningful partnerships, co-learning, and innovative frameworks for inclusive participation, to build a brighter future together.
Editorial
by Alvin Pang
Collaboration within and across sociopolitical and sectoral siloes may have become more potentially fraught, but remains indispensable. The societies best able to hold and strive together despite inherent tensions and differences are more likely to achieve a desirable shared future. The question is how to find effective ways to do so, in a volatile and uncertain environment.
Why Partnership and Engagement Matter to the Public Service
by Leo Yip
The momentum towards greater co-creation and collaboration with the public will strengthen our efforts to better prepare Singapore for the future.
Practising Collaborative Governance: How the Public Service can Support a Democracy of Deeds
by Teoh Zsin Woon
To help build a vibrant, active and engaged society, we must cultivate new mindsets and muscles better suited to supporting co-creation, co-delivery and collective responsibility.
Mobilising the Public: Making It Work
In Conversation with Denise Low, Soh Lin Li and Woo Wee Meng
Three public agencies reflect on efforts to engage community volunteers as part of their organisational mission.
Empowering Communities Through Co-Vision, Co-Action and Co-Learning
by Ang Hak Seng
The next bound of complex and intertwined social issues can only be addressed by sharing responsibility with community stakeholders for service design and delivery.
The SG100 Futures Lab: A Prototype for Seeding Trisector Collaboration
by Druga Rajendran and Jacqueline Wong
A new model of transformative dialogue shifts the conversation from ‘Ego’ to ‘Eco’ in envisioning a better shared future for all in Singapore.
Navigating Complexity through Collaboration
by Lim Kar Yee
Complex public problems can only be addressed through a whole-ecosystem approach. A guiding framework can ensure aligned agendas and efforts for collective impact that makes a difference.
Participatory Design and Planning: Helping Citizens Make More of a Difference
by Larry Yeung and Jan Lim
A civic design and planning non-profit group explains how they bridge community and institutional stakeholders, helping them work together towards a better built environment in Singapore.
The Transformative Logic of Community Empowerment
by Justin Lee
The IPS Policy Lab is exploring how communities might help one another without the need for permission, professionals or philanthropy.
Kitchen Table Conversations: Challenging Assumptions About the Community
by Emma Fletcher and Emily Jenke
A new approach to public engagement allows for both inclusivity and broad scale in getting citizens to consider and respond to policy issues.
Making Good Work: How One Government Unit Co-Creates Solutions for a Better Singapore
by Lam Kee Wei, Li Hongyi, Nitya Menon and Alwyn Tan
By using hackathon approaches, GovTech’s Open Government Products (OGP) convenes talent, energy and passion to solve problems Singaporeans care about.
Varieties of Engagement in Government-Citizen Interactions
by Aaron Maniam
Understanding the micro motivations of stakeholders could allow for more targeted strategies and technologies to improve the quality of participatory governance efforts.
Finding Common Ground for Partnership
In Conversation with Kuik Shao Yin
ETHOS speaks with former Nominated Member of Parliament Kuik Shiao-Yin, who is Executive Director of Common Ground Civic Centre, a 9-year-long project initiated in partnership with the Ministry of Community, Culture and Youth (MCCY).
More than a Feeling: Understanding Public Trust
by Heather Humphries and Vernie Oliveiro
Amid widening societal divides and declining faith in institutions, the quality of relations between government and citizenry depends on paying heed to Competence, Integrity and Care.
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