The Singapore Public Service and National Development

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had in 2009 with senior Singaporean officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Civil Service College and the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office. These discussions focused on how we could collaborate and bring a better understanding of Singapore’s public service governance experience to the wider world. I would like to thank Tin Fook, Donald Low and Yee Ping Yi for their support. I would also like to extend a special thanks to my UNDP colleagues, especially Lena Sinha, Dipa Bagai and Anisa Muzzafar as well as the members of the excellent team drawn from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Civil Service College’s Centre for Governance and Leadership who have worked exceedingly hard to make this publication a reality and this launch a success. I am also very pleased that the author of this report, Dr Naresh C. Saxena was able to join us here today. Dr Saxena has had a long and distinguished career in the Indian Administrative Service and is currently serving as a member of India’s National Advisory Council, which is chaired by Ms Sonia Gandhi. Dr Saxena will present the book and will then join in a panel discussion and Q&A with Prof. Neo Boon Siong of the Nanyang Technological University here in Singapore and Prof Adrian Leftwich from York University in the United Kingdom. I would also like to thank our colleagues at the UNDP Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in New York, and the UNDP Regional Centre in Bangkok for their important contributions to this publication. Singapore, as we all know, is an example of remarkable development success. From the early 1960s, Singapore moved steadily from a poor city state, with a modest economy based on entrepot trade, few natural resources, high unemployment, labour unrest and political tension, to today’s highly globalised economy with one of the highest GDP’s per capita in the world. And today, as the book states, “Modern Singapore,…..is a model of efficiency”, and admired by many policy makers around the world. 3
Singapore’s early leaders, led by then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, set out to transform the fledgling economy and establish a clean, competent and effective government to implement its policies. The state and its bureaucracy would take a leading role in enhancing economic growth, generating employment, fostering industralisation, financing private investment, building infrastructure, and delivering services to the people. At the heart of this development experience, which Dr Saxena has so aptly distilled, is the important role played by the public service in translating the vision of the political leadership into actual development outcomes for its people. As the book points out, “Good governance is not only about policy. It is also dependent on the implementation of that policy. For that, a powerful, honest, and efficient civil service is critical”. UNDP is pleased to be able to help provide through this publication a wider understanding of Singapore’s development experience, and to highlight the important role played by the public service as well as the positive multipliers this has led to. The book addresses both the issues which make Singapore’s public service effective and seeks to explain why. It also seeks to address the following important questions: what were and are the policy choices that Singapore made and continues to make, the institutional arrangements and incentives it has put in place, and the investment decisions that have allowed Singapore to become an island of excellence in the management and delivery of public services? How has it created an enabling environment that empowers public service institutions to cope with and manage change? How has the capacity of the civil service been developed and enhanced to keep it at the cutting edge? And finally, and perhaps most importantly from the perspective of UNDP, what are the replicable lessons that developing and developed countries alike can learn from Singapore? 4
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The Singapore Public Service and National Development

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