lee kuan yew world city prize
dialogue with minister mentor lee kuan yew
The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize is a biennial international award to recognise individuals and organisations that have
made outstanding contributions to the creation of vibrant, liveable and sustainable urban communities around the world. The
inaugural Prize was presented at an award ceremony and banquet during the World Cities Summit. The programme featured
a dialogue with Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, moderated by Prof. Kishore Mahbubani, Chairman of the Lee
Kuan Yew World City Prize Nominating Committee, and Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. The dialogue
saw interesting questions from the audience, ranging from climate change and nuclear power to issues of governance.
Left to right: Prof. Kishore Mahbubani and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew
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Prof. Mahbubani began this session by noting that Singapore’s rapid transformation, from a third world slum at the time of
independence, to a first world city was due largely to the vision and leadership of its first Prime Minister Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, who
was Minister Mentor at the time of this dialogue. Long before the Green movement, Mr. Lee had a vision of making Singapore
the world’s greenest and most efficient city. His leadership enabled Singapore to strike a balance between the conflicting pulls
of economic demands and environmental protection in order to achieve sustainable development. This vision has also put
Singapore on the path to water self-sufficiency, where it had once been largely dependent on imported water. Prof. Mahbubani
said Mr. Lee’s remarkable achievements in developing Singapore made it apt that he address the audience.
Stand out from the rest or perish
Asked by Prof. Mahbubani to outline the key policies and initiatives responsible for Singapore’s dramatic transformation from
third world to first, Mr. Lee recalled the enormity of the challenge Singapore faced at the outset. In addition to its small size, lack
of hinterland and water insufficiency, it had to make a livelihood around a set of newly-independent countries that were bent
on cutting off trade with Singapore. The choice for Singapore was to differentiate itself from the rest of the region or perish.
Singapore decided to transform itself into a first world oasis in a third world region. It sought to make itself into a base, from
which developed countries could foray into the region by building world-class infrastructure.
Industrialising without polluting
One of the most difficult tasks facing the government, Mr. Lee said, was to carry out industrialisation and develop services and
logistics without polluting the island. He cited Singapore’s first petrochemical complex, built by the Japanese firm Sumitomo
in the 1970s, to show that even in the early days of industrialisation, the control of pollution had been an important policy
consideration. Government insisted on higher standards of pollution control, which sparked off a row when Sumitomo sought to
increase the price tag and Singapore had to bargain it down. Mr. Lee also cited the example of how overriding pollution concerns
led Singapore to turn down a lucrative offer by an Australian national to rent one of its outer islands to set up an iron plant.
Changing mindsets – the biggest challenge
The task of building Singapore’s infrastructure was not too difficult; the more difficult task in propelling Singapore from the
ranks of the third world to the first world was changing the mindset and behaviour of the people. In fact, this was the biggest
challenge he faced, said Mr. Lee in response to a question from the floor. The technologies for building good infrastructure
would often be easily available for purchase to any nation, but getting the public to cooperate and buy into a first world mindset
was harder but also the determining factor. It depended on the amount of discipline the people were prepared to observe.
Mr. Lee recalled how a people used to spitting in public places, rearing poultry and living in shanties with holes in the ground for
toilets had to get used to living in high-rise flats with flush toilets. But, he said, the Singapore government managed to surmount
the challenge by educating the people through their school-going children, through mass media and through exhortations by
their leaders about the perils of maintaining the status quo. These efforts gave the people tremendous motivation to change
their attitudes. He said Singapore also had to enact tough measures to curb littering and vandalism, which were rampant at one
time. Mr. Lee observed that these measures were still in place and could not be abandoned if Singapore was to remain a clean,
first world city, as evidenced by recent high-profile vandalism cases. Summing up, Mr Lee said the population was a resilient
one that rose to the challenges of development.
Noting that Singaporeans seemed to have also developed a first world mindset in relation to marriage and child-bearing, one
member of the floor asked about the implications of Singapore’s slow rate of population growth for its economic development
prospects. Mr. Lee said changing attitudes to marriage and child-bearing were the inevitable result of women becoming
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educated and having more job opportunities, as well as the removal of the glass ceiling in the public and private sectors. Women
today would put their careers at least on par with marriage and child-bearing. He noted that of all the European countries, only
Sweden and France have an indigenous population whose fertility rate is around 2.1, which is the natural replacement rate.
Singapore was trying to boost its population by taking in young, educated immigrants from neighbouring countries, especially
Malaysia, India and China, who are attracted by the prospect of living a better life in Singapore, one which they would have to wait
another 20 to 40 years to experience in their home country. Singapore’s population now comprises nearly 4 million residents and
another 1.5 million non-residents. But, Mr. Lee pointed out, the problem was that once these migrants came to Singapore, they
quickly picked up the attitudes of their Singaporean neighbours – they too were now trying to limit their family sizes as they had
aspirations of giving their children the luxuries they could not have imagined in their own countries, such as kindergarten and ballet
lessons. Mr. Lee lamented that Singapore might have to continue struggling with the demographic challenge for some time.
Mr. Lee also noted that with an influx of immigrants, there would also exist the concern of integration, as we would have to absorb
these migrants, get them adjusted and acclimatised, and used to Singaporean behaviour and land use practices. He noted
that language was an important factor – while most migrants from India speak English, those from China seldom do, hence the
government is looking into providing English lessons for them.
Saving every drop of water from the sky
One of the participants wanted to know whether Singapore could help his country replicate the kind of success it had achieved
in managing its water resources. He said what he had in mind was for Singapore to offer not just advice but also leadership
and expertise. Mr. Lee mentioned that a number of Singaporean companies such as Hyflux and SembCorp were open to such
opportunities. He outlined the four steps that Singapore had taken towards achieving water self-sufficiency: [1] conserving every drop
of water; [2] guarding against pollution; [3] collecting water; and [4] reclaiming water. Right from the time of independence, Singapore
put in place measures to eventually overcome the political uncertainty of relying on a neighbouring country for its water supply.
Singapore had set out to systematically exploit every drop of water. In addition to water conservation efforts, it sought to minimise
leakage through its underground water pipes, by developing a device to block the source of leaks without having to dig up the
sewers. More important, Singapore had sewered up the whole island so that no sullage or industrial water went into its rivers and
drains. Mr. Lee noted that the recycling of used water employing membrane technology cost half the price of desalination, another
water supply method used in Singapore. He recalled that at one time, when Singapore’s water engineers told him water passing
through the city was too toxic and therefore impossible to reclaim, he had told them to plan for the day when the right technology
became available. Today, with the inclusion of a new reservoir in the city, the Marina Barrage, about three quarters of Singapore
was a catchment area, and by the next decade the entire island would be a catchment.
‘No chance’ of energy independence
In response to a question on how Singapore was planning to become energy independent, Mr. Lee felt this was an almost
impossible goal. He pointed out that, across the world, renewable energy still constituted an almost negligible share of energy
sources, with oil and gas continuing to top the list, followed by nuclear power and coal. In Singapore’s case, wind power was not
feasible while solar power, though feasible, was still an expensive technology.
Taking up the point, the mayor of Rizhao in China’s Shandong province wanted to know what Singapore was doing to switch
to cleaner energy. He noted that his prefecture-level city had been the only Chinese city that had won the inaugural World Clean
Energy award in 2007, and the only Chinese city awarded the UN Habitat Scroll of Honour for 2009. The mayor pointed out that
solar energy was being used for water-heating by some 95% of the residents in the urban areas of his prefecture and some 30%
of residents from the rural areas. Major strides had also been made in using wind energy and natural gas, he said.
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Responding, Mr. Lee noted that even as China was switching to clean sources of energy, it was still building two coalpowered stations every week to meet its significant energy needs. He said he had been impressed with China’s research and
development in solar panels and had in fact asked Singapore’s environment officials to consider buying Chinese solar panels.
However, he had since learnt that China was subsidising the use of solar panels domestically in order to lead the world in
renewable energy R&D. Singapore, however, was a small country that needed to take a cost-benefits approach and it was
waiting for solar panels from China or elsewhere to be commercialised on the world market at more favourable prices.
The mayor of New Zealand’s Waitakere City, who is one of the members of the ‘Mayors for Peace’ movement which is trying
to promote a nuclear-free world, wanted to know whether Mr. Lee thought the world could become nuclear-free by 2020, and
whether the elder statesman could help mentor those who sought to achieve this goal.
Mr. Lee replied that every country should ideally emulate New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy but the reality was that nuclear
energy was a more viable form of clean energy than most other sources. New Zealand, he noted, was well-endowed with
gas reserves as well as powerful winds and tides that could serve as alternative energy sources, obviating the need for using
nuclear power. However, other countries were less fortunate. Mr. Lee noted that even Britain had decided recently to go ahead
with a massive programme for building nuclear plants in spite of a major nuclear disaster it had experienced several decades
ago in Cumbria on its north-western coast.
Mr. Lee then discussed Singapore’s clean energy plans. Singapore was buying piped gas from its neighbours. But in order to
hedge against possible price increases, Singapore was planning to diversify its sources of gas supply by building a liquefied
natural gas plant that would enable it to buy and store gas from places further away, like Qatar. Nonetheless, Mr. Lee said, since
gas was a costly option and not entirely clean, Singapore might have to consider nuclear energy, albeit with safeguards against
accidents, which could be disastrous for a country of Singapore’s size.
Looking ahead
Asked what his expectations of Singapore’s future was, Mr. Lee said the question had to be posed to the younger generation
of leaders as he was not sufficiently clued into technology trends, which, in his view, would be the driver of change in the world.
When he took on the stewardship of Singapore some 50 years ago, he had a rolling plan that changed every five years in
response to new opportunities and challenges. Many of the changes that had taken place today had been unimaginable in the
early years.
For instance, Singapore had started out as a seaport, capitalising on its strategic location between the Indian and Atlantic
Oceans. But the arrival of the aeroplane had allowed for air cargo and travel services, and airports such as Bangkok’s, which
were more strategically located than Singapore’s Changi Airport, posed a challenge to Singapore’s hub status. Mr. Lee noted
that Singapore had nonetheless managed to maintain its hub status by continuously striving to offer more efficient services
than any other airport in the region. Singapore’s future, he suggested, would depend on how it dealt with the opportunities and
challenges thrown up by new technologies.
Asked to name the greatest challenge the world would face in the future and what solutions there were to manage it, Mr. Lee
singled out overpopulation. With the world’s population of six billion projected to grow to nine billion in 50 years’ time, Mr. Lee
feared the earth’s biodiversity would be destroyed, and that our quality of life would be severely affected. The strain on natural
resources as more food was produced to feed the additional numbers would be compounded by the effects of global warming.
Mr. Lee suggested that the best way of slowing down global reproduction rates would be to educate more women across the
world and enable them to join the workforce.
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