The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently cancelled its meeting in Singapore. Originally intended for May 2021 and then delayed for three months, the meeting was stopped because of the uncertain and worsening COVID-19 situation in many countries of the world.
The WEF is a large scale event. It brings together business, government, academic and social leaders from around the world. It is an event that encourages dialogue to promote issues of global importance to shape national and multinational agendas. The convergence of leaders in a world forum creates hope that these same leaders can chart an agenda that can better people’s lives.
As much as at any time in the 21st century, there is a need for leadership and multilateral decision making to guide our world’s recovery from the global pandemic. With the cancellation of the meeting, there is not only the elimination of the chance for important face-to-face discussions about pandemic management, there are also the symbolic effects that must be considered.
When the world’s elites, the leaders across multiple strata of society, cannot manage to bypass challenges that occupy the minds and lives of normal people in the world, it reinforces the depth of these challenges. The optimism that began to emerge with the onset of vaccination drives has been curtailed by word of the WEF’s cancellation.
If pessimism begins to overrun optimism and if countries continue to face the pandemic on a nation-by-nation basis, the downsides of COVID-19 become more pronounced. It will be more difficult to enact policies that restrict personal movement. It will be more difficult to implement measures that curtail transmission of the virus. It will be more difficult for governments to keep the support of their populace.
Lost opportunities
As much or more so than these general negative effects of this decision, the host city-state Singapore stands to lose the gains it had hoped to make in at least three ways.
First, Singapore has been emerging as an important meeting location for international leaders. The so-called Singapore Summit in 2018 that brought together North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un and then United States President Donald Trump was arguably the most prominent meeting held in Singapore, up to the WEF.
With a heated China-US relationship and other rising regional tensions, Singapore has a chance to increase the importance of its role as a mediator and neutral haven for international relations. Singapore has substantial prominence on the global stage with its regional economic leadership. To that, it had a chance to better position itself as a place for global meditation of politics and international relations. With the WEF being pulled from Singapore, its aspirations in this regard must take a step backward.
Second, Singapore has been widely touted as the country that fought the pandemic the best. Up till the May 2021 re-emergence of the pathogen in Singapore, its leaders and senior administrators had gained well-earned credit for a sensible set of well-implemented policies. Yet, as with any invisible enemy, COVID 19 has the ability to sneak through even the most well-devised defences.
The canning of the WEF puts a brake on some of the international accolades accorded to Singapore. Even though announcements place the WEF decision as being rooted in a worsening of the global pandemic, the timing could not have been more unfortunate for Singapore. The coexistence of the cancellation and COVID’s increased prevalence in Singapore creates a sense of causality.
The consequent interpretation is simple, even if not accurate. Singapore could not control the pandemic within its own borders, hence the WEF could not be held in the city-state. Justified or not, the cancellation is a stain on Singapore’s global reputation.
Third, and perhaps most critically, holding the meeting in Singapore would have bolstered internal support and confidence in the nation’s leadership. Being able to live life more-or-less normally during the pandemic, while becoming the place where the world’s elite prefer to meet are two markers of effective management of a crisis situation.
Leadership opportunity
Yet, management is not the same as leadership. Management is about making good decisions and mobilising resources and people to handle the defined situation. It is about being efficient while also being effective. Nobody who has witnessed Singapore’ economic success over the past 50 years could credibly question whether Singapore’s institutions are managed well.
Leadership, however, is about creating vision and values that lend credible and intrinsic support to the decisions that must be made. If management is about the tangible and the transactional, leadership is about the intangible and the emotive.
Leadership is essential to guiding a nation through crises like the pandemic. Leadership needs to inspire people to make decisions and support decisions during times of uncertainty. Leadership is also important in handling COVID-19 because a multi-faceted solution is required to control the pandemic.
We now know COVID-19 is a new reality of our world. We will live forever with COVID-19 as we live with the flu, the cold and other globally endemic viruses. The goal cannot be eradication, it must be oriented to some level of manageable control.
Now that Singapore has had a wake-up call from the cancellation of WEF, its leaders have a chance to lead. While the benefits to Singapore from the WEF are lost, new benefits can be gained. The Island’s leaders must articulate clear goals in defining the effective management of COVID-19. Leaders must evoke confidence and inspire people to vaccinate to build population resistance sooner, not later. Leaders must build a vision of what a post-pandemic Singapore will be like.
The concurrence of a resurgent COVID-19 in Singapore along with the deletion of the WEF could well represent an inflection point for Singapore’s leaders. Singapore has shown it can manage a crisis. Now there is an opportunity to build not only economic resilience but also to lead and inspire social resilience to the pandemic, thereby reinforcing the social contract between a country’s people and its elected leadership.
The article is an abridged version of the one first published on CNA.