Singapore-France Workshop on “Sustainability in Environmental Public Health for ASEAN Countries”
November 2008

Harmonious cities, harmonious people, and 18 determined minds - Public health professionals hailing from 7 countries of ASEAN, a third of whom are doctorates of public health, gathered at the Singapore Environment Institute (SEI) last week to brainstorm solutions for environmental health problems confronting emerging cities.

The technical workshop on “Sustainability in Environmental Public Health” was inaugurated in SEI to provide a platform for active discussion and exchange within the ASEAN family. Organized by SEI with French Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the 3-day workshop took the form of 3 themes on water-environment and 1 theme on vector epidemiology.

Workshop participants with representatives from the French Embassy, MFA and SEI

In his opening speech, Dr Walid Benzarti, Attache for Science and Higher Education of the French Embassy aptly regarded the delegates as pioneers who “had been called upon to pass on the knowledge gained at the workshop to your respective countries”. He also commended SEI for “the excellent effort in putting together a workshop of this caliber”. A fruit of SEI’s partnership mores, the workshop signified the first ever collaboration between SEI and the French Embassy in educational delivery.

Dr Walid Benzarti giving the opening speech

In the workshop, SEI adopted the format of having 2 lectures and a discussion-cum-restitution session. Under each theme, France’s national environmental health expert Mr Dominique Maison presented a lecture, which was immediately followed by supplementation on the Singapore experience shared by NEA and PUB.

Allocated to groups that contained a mix of different country representatives, the delegates were then asked to surface the water supply and sanitation issues that had risen to the national agenda in ASEAN. Mr Maison and the Singapore experts moderated the discussion and addressed the issues through their extensive working knowledge and astute intellect. Problems were nipped in the bud and everyone, including the speakers, acquired a fulfilling sense of meaningful and constructive learning. After a series of exchange, the delegates felt better empowered to deal with some of these challenges. At the evaluation, Myanmar’s malariologist, Dr Ni Ni Aye awarded full scores to the workshop and commented that she had gained new perspectives and insights into certain crucial issues.

Mr Dominique Maison facilitating a discussion

With the mooting of the creation of livable cities, the workshop was timely as it allowed for the beautiful fusion of expert ideas from France, Singapore and several ASEAN nations. Indeed, as DSEI, Mr Ong Eng Kian summarized the learning experience aptly in his closing speech, that “It’s wonderful how ideas from different countries, which are located far apart, can be melted together within several minutes of brainstorming. To be able to synergize knowledge and concepts was a great thing to have happened at SEI, who strongly believed that knowledge is meant to be shared as it does not belong to a dusty shelf. And shared joy is almost always, double joy.”

Last updated on 5 Dec 08