FES Singapore: a focal point for social democracy in South-East Asia

“The Singapore office tries to distil regional patterns from the work at national level,” said Adrienne Woltersdorf, Director, Office for Regional Cooperation in Asia of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). “This makes us better able to conduct advocacy for the region vis-à-vis the German government, as well as the Brussels institutions.”

A key area of the office’s work is on trade, notably on Core Labour Standards Plus (CLS+), an FES campaign launched in 2016 to promote and develop binding labour standards in trade and global value chains. 

“It is our job to distil a clear, actionable message back to Brussels and other Western institutions driving trade negotiations,” Woltersdorf said. “That message is: ‘Your assumption that trade benefits everyone is just not working, and we can show you where and how’.”

In several countries in the region, the natural partners for FES—the political parties supporting social democracy—are not in government or even opposition, or have even faded from the political landscape altogether, Woltersdorf explained. 

“Where does that leave FES? If we have fewer formal political parties to partner with, we still have a vigorous network of civil society, individuals and small groups,” she said. In some specific cases, political turnarounds have put FES allies back on the political map, she said.

FES supports an upgrade of labour rights because countries need to invest in their workers if they want to be part of the digitalized economies of the 21^st Century.

This also applies to the Chinese initiative to reinvigorate the historical Silk Road to the West. “The Silk Road has two ends, not only the one in China,” Woltersdorf pointed out. “We see it as also the responsibility of Europe to ask questions and find answers to the upcoming opportunities and challenges." 

Read the photo report "Riding the Silk Road – Discord and cooperation along the maritime route"