Civil society’s role cannot be to provide public goods

Assistant Professor Ng Kok Hoe from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS and Associate Professor Teo You Yenn, Head of Sociology, from NTU felt the argument that we should count on civil society to provide housing solutions instead of pursuing policy change reflects a misunderstanding about the nature of housing problems, how public policies work, and what civil society can and cannot do. When we see unevenness in our public policy, we should work harder to resolve it collectively, rather than push the resolution to individual actors such as civil society.

• The Straits Times, 5 June 2017, Opinion, pA18