ETHOS Roundtable: The Balancing Act of Governance

ETHOS Digital Issue 12, Apr 2024

PARTICIPANTS:

Mr Huot Synead, then Secretary of State, Ministry of Civil Service, Cambodia

Dr Suharti, Secretary General, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology, Indonesia

Ms Pauline Mulligan, Assistant Secretary General, Indigenous Enterprise Development, Ministry of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ireland

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In your context, what are some of the most significant challenges facing government today, and how are you addressing them?

MULLIGAN: At the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in Ireland, we face four main challenges that have become more acute in recent years, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first is our labour supply and the international competition for talent. Ireland’s enterprise base includes a large cohort of multinational companies many of which come from foreign direct investment. One of our priorities is to develop indigenous Irish-owned companies to rebalance the economy. In this context competition for talent is a challenge but we find there is a lot of movement of workers between these cohorts with many workers from MNCs starting up their own companies so we have a big focus on helping business to start and scale.

The second challenge is what we call the twin transition—the need to pursue digitalisation as well as decarbonisation in light of climate change. We are working to address these goals with businesses and the public at large. To some degree, the pandemic gave us a terrific platform for more businesses to go online.

A third challenge has to do with the global trend towards deglobalisation and protectionism. Like Singapore, we are a small open economy that is heavily reliant on trade for our economic prosperity. On the other hand, the shortening of global supply chains could also present an opportunity for us that we could harness.

HUOT: Since the pandemic, many countries, including Cambodia, have experienced slower economic growth, and prospects remain uncertain. People are concerned about their living standards. This is why the government has focused on how to bring back growth. Before the pandemic, Cambodia’s GDP would grow 7% to 10% a year; now we are looking at around 5% annual growth.

Cambodia elected a new government in 2023. The people have high expectations of public service delivery from the new administration. To meet these expectations, the government is taking a collaborative approach, working together with other stakeholders to meet these goals. This means that managing and improving public trust in government has become a key concern for us.

We are also looking to digital technology to help us improve service delivery and transform our public sector. But we are also keeping a close eye on its risks, such as the impact on privacy and cybersecurity.

SUHARTI: In Indonesia, our challenge is to make sure that our children have access to good quality schooling. One of our priorities at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology is to help our young people do well, not only academically, but also in terms of character building to prepare them for the future.

At the end of 2019, analysis showed that up to half of all Indonesian students had failed to reach minimum competence in numeracy and many also did not reach minimum literacy, based on international PISA standards.¹ Our Minister declared this an emergency, prompting us to accelerate efforts to ensure our young people develop these fundamental competencies. Apart from basic skill problem, we also have some issues with bully, sexual abuse, and intolerance, which is what we are trying to address through character building programmes in schools.

A related challenge is to improve the quality of our teachers. With more than four million teachers in Indonesia, it is impossible, with our limited resources, to provide regular training for all of them. So, we need to find alternative ways to support them, such as digital platforms for teacher training and professional development.

How are you adopting digitalisation to address the challenges you face?

SUHARTI: In general, digitalisation is a central priority for the Indonesian government. We have set up units to provide dedicated support for digitalisation strategies across the public sector.

For education, we have developed a digital platform to provide materials for our teachers, including training videos, and to enable them to learn from one another. Some two million teachers are already on the platform. The rapid adoption of online methods by teachers as well as students has been very encouraging.

We have also computerised our assessments, including its reporting system, that enables schools to compare their performance with other schools in the area. Through the assessment data, we hope we can help schools and local governments in planning and prioritising challenges. The data provided includes data on literacy, numeracy, statistics on bullying risks and so on.

Digital systems will also make it easier for our schools to prepare their reports to the Ministry, and to manage their financial resources. Not all schools have good access to the internet, so our computerised systems are also available both online and offline. We have also set up an e-commerce system to help schools procure supplies they need, and it has already attracted thousands of business partners.

Looking forward, we have been thinking about how we can use artificial intelligence (AI) to help teachers prepare their lesson plans and teaching materials, which will save them time. We have been in talks with Open AI on these possibilities. We are also working with leading companies, such as Google, and have established internship programmes so that our young people can benefit from the experience and grow into the digital talent Indonesia will need in future. We hope to groom over one million digital talents in the next few years.

MULLIGAN: Ireland has a comprehensive national digital strategy which sets out what we are doing: in terms of building infrastructure, the skills we need to have, digitalising public services, and supporting enterprise. It is about putting the systems and processes in place.

For AI, one of our priorities is to build trust, given public concern about the technology. Our national AI strategy is called “AI—Here For Good”,² which has a double meaning: AI is going to be here to stay, and it is here to do good. We want to make sure the use of AI is ethical, beneficial and people-centred. We have also appointed an AI Ambassador, a youth council, and an advisory board to advise government on related issues. Our AI strategies are about a year old, and we should be getting our first progress reports on how the implementation has proceeded. Our priority is to establish facts about the technology, and to hear from informed voices, in order to reassure people about the use of this new technology.

Ireland, and especially Dublin, has done well in terms of attracting major high-tech companies. They have been anchored in the business ecosystem for many years now, and we have seen a transfer of knowledge to Irish companies. We now have our own Irish startups, entrepreneurs, research centres and so on, who are becoming part of the supply chain for the multinationals.

All these developments reinforce our sense of responsibility for regulation—both because of the concern about public trust, and because we host so many large tech companies involved in this work on our own turf, so to speak. We are putting in place the pieces of the digital regulation jigsaw, so that we have a strong foundation for the future.

In the past, an attractive tax regime might have been an important aspect of our competitive advantage, but now the multinationals have said that regulation is vital. Businesses like to know what the rules are, and that they will be enforced. That clarity is part of what makes us an attractive business environment.

HUOT: In 2021, Cambodia put in place a policy framework to develop a digital economy and society. As part of this initiative, we have been laying the foundations for our digital transformation in government. We have set up an interministerial working group as a collaborative approach, including government and private sector stakeholders, to pursue this. We feel this is a good way to build trust in government as well as to advance our national goals.

Even as we improve public service delivery, we are also using technology to improve business and other systems. For instance, we are looking into data policies that will allow us to use personalised data, such as what banks already have access to, to improve services, while protecting data ownership, security and privacy.

We are also working to assess the implications for AI, because we are concerned about its impact on society. One worry is that AI may replace humans in certain jobs, which could impact the many people in the Cambodian workforce who are still dependent on paper-based methods. We need to support and stand up for these people, even as we embrace new digital opportunities.

In your view, what are some aspects of governance we should all be thinking more about?

SUHARTI: I think we are not attending enough to the empathetic side of governance. Sometimes we want to make change quickly, without taking enough into account other stakeholders’ feelings or needs. We need to do more to help people see that changes will be truly beneficial for them, not just for the government, or for senior management.

We must also not forget those who are left behind, especially as we pursue these technological developments. We cannot just roll out the infrastructure and expect everyone to come on board. We need to mitigate the risks and help to bridge inequality of access. We must also bear in mind those who may have difficulty using the new systems.

MULLIGAN: I have been thinking about the difference between managers and leaders. Managers make sure things are done right, while leaders make sure we are doing the right things. But I also think that in leading us into the future, leaders should make sure we are doing the right thing, as well as the right things. And then looking to do things right to get us there. All of these are important from a governance point of view.

As the pace of change and pace of decision-making accelerates, we should remember to take time to consult with people; to listen so that we know to do things better and to do the right thing even as we need to make decisions faster.

We also need systems and processes to make sure we take care of all of these aspects of governance. As was pointed out recently, there is no such thing as an evil civil servant. It is usually a system or process that has failed, rather than an individual.

As leaders, we are responsible for charting new paths that may require us to do things differently, in a way that has never been done before, because there is no playbook for the new. This may mean disrupting established processes. But those processes are also important to protect our staff and the public interest. As a leader, there is a tension in having to do new things while also needing to have appropriate processes and safeguards in place.

We need to be empowering people to take risks because we cannot innovate otherwise. But we also need to be managing the risks. How might we resolve this balancing act as we move deeper into uncharted territory?

HUOT: Having systems and processes in place is important, but we also need to pay attention to mindsets and culture. We must remember that people do not all think the same way in a society. People with different backgrounds may have different understandings of any change, for instance.

This is also why Cambodia is trying to strengthen the capability of our people. In government, we are planning to train and upskill some 1.5 million of youth from poor and vulnerable families through training programmes, so that they can better support the coming reforms. Our human resources are the starting point for meaningful change.

What did you find noteworthy during your time in Singapore for the LGP?

SUHARTI: In Singapore, a much smaller country than Indonesia, the government plays a relatively larger role. But I have noticed a strong alignment among government leaders, which means programmes can be executed more effectively.

Having worked in the Indonesian government for over 32 years, I have had many interactions with Singaporean officials. I also notice that there has been a change over time: they are now much more open, and more prepared to share information and to collaborate across boundaries.

MULLIGAN: I have been struck by the alignment across government, in terms of the direction, ambition and determination to deliver. There has been a very strong focus on evidence-based policymaking, measurable results and performance indicators. It points to the need to continually sense check the outcomes of what we do—to look at what the evidence is really telling us.

At the same time, my impression is that all of these are informed by a sense of compassionate empathy: that all this is for and about the people. We are building up our economy, and our infrastructure, for the good of society.

HUOT: In Cambodia, we also want to be regarded as a government that takes care of its people. Singapore does this in a whole-of-nation way, by involving different stakeholders and society at large. While we also work towards this in my country, not all actors are actively involved in the processes of governance.

My time in Singapore has been a reminder to better engage more stakeholders, so that our government policies can be more tangible for and applicable to people with different needs.

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NOTES

1. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is widely used as an international benchmark for assessing the outcomes of different education systems.
2. AI—Here for Good.