World Economic Forum East Asia - Dispatch No 1 from Jakarta!
My first session at the World Economic Forum East Asia, was on the Role of Think Tanks in Policy Making in East Asia. The session was Chaired by Simon Tay, the Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Two short presentations were made by William H Overholt, President of the Fung Global Institute, and Chandran Nair, Founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow (GIFT) (don’t you just hate these clever acronyms, especially when you struggle so unsuccessfully to come up with them?!!) Overholt’s was a pretty orthodox, somewhat western-centric view. He talked about TTs needing to think about the future, and to develop deep analyses of issues – because governments are beleaguered by electoral politics with no space to scout for new ideas or do some corrective thinking. TTs are also faced with challenges – challenges of maintaining independence while receiving government funds, or from ‘clients’ who typically want you to support/refute strategies that