Forward Singapore: The long road to a new social compact

The

Forward Singapore report released last week

is an ambitious blueprint for an economic and social transformation that is far-reaching in its scope and scale. Achieving its goals, and then sustaining them, will take some doing. Progress will be measured not just by numbers, but also mindset changes.

To understand why, a quick recap of what the new social compact is about. This signature initiative of Singapore’s 4G leadership, which involved consultations with more than 200,000 citizens over the past 16 months – with more to come – aims to adopt new, and sometimes radical, approaches to greater economic and social inclusion and resilience in an era of geopolitical tensions, technological disruption and a fracturing of the global economy.