Indonesia-Singapore Young Leaders Scenario Planning Workshop 2018

By Keoni Indrabayu Marzuki

The Indonesia Programme at RSIS, in collaboration with the Temasek Foundation Connects, organised the annual Indonesia-Singapore Young Leaders Scenario Planning Workshop 2018 from 8 to 9 November 2018. The scenario planning workshop, which was facilitated by Dr Khong Cho-Oon, Chief Political Analyst from Shell International, aims to provide capacity-building training for Indonesia’s and Singapore’s future leaders to help them envision the future of the two countries, and the relationship between them in 2040. Workshop participants included 21 Indonesians and 26 Singaporeans from various sectors, namely business, politics, government, media, military, academia, and civil society. The 2018 workshop is the third one organised by the Indonesia Programme, with similar workshops conducted in 2008 and 2016.

This workshop consisted of a three-part scenario-planning exercise. The Indonesian and Singaporean participants were divided randomly in equal numbers across six teams, comprising a mix of four to five Indonesians and Singaporeans in each team. The facilitator then guided the participants towards critically thinking in a regional framework that encompasses not only the ASEAN region, but also the Asia-Pacific region for the first scenario planning exercise. For the second part, the teams were given the task of applying what they learned from the first exercise and were regrouped into two separate teams, with one looking at Singapore’s perspective and the other from Indonesia’s perspective. For this exercise, Indonesian participants were encouraged to look into the perspective of Singapore and vice versa. For the third part, participants applied the knowledge they gained in the previous sessions to devise scenarios on Indonesia-Singapore bilateral relations for the future.