News & Events

Phua Chao Rong, Charles

August 27, 2018

Mr. Phua Chao Rong is a pracademic. He is currently a Head Research Trainer in Ministry of Defence training Captains and Majors in research work to support policymaking. He is expected to assume Deputy Director of Centre for Livable Cities, Ministry of National Development in early 2017. He is also a civil society leader as President of Association for Public Affairs running the SG100 envisioning and policy recommendations process in youth sector.

As an academic, he is Lee Kong Chian scholar and final year PhD candidate at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Fulbright US-ASEAN fellow focusing on US-China-Singapore foreign policy. While schooled in International Relations at LSE, he did a PhD in Public Policy to work on my gaps and also because good public policies can start small. He has always find lawyers fascinating: their clarity of thought, precision in writing, impact of delivery. Strong lawyers tend to make strong politicians; converse might not be true. While he is now schooled in policy, law remains my gap. To him, a solid understanding of law, economics, policy sciences and international context is vital to serve the public better. Professionally, TIJ Workshop is useful to his new job by upskilling him to better analyse ‘livable cities’ from a ‘rule of law and policy’ angle. In the 1990s, good governance and global governance discourse, ‘rule of law’ as a key institution has always been mentioned. Singapore is one proponent. How exactly it works in a ‘livable city’, how to adapt its success in other cities with varying political models are key questions I seek answers.