EU-Singapore Urban and Regional Cooperation: Kick-off Meeting with Pilot Cities – International Urban and Regional Cooperation

The IURC Asia-Australasia programme held its fifth kick-off meeting in the Asia-Australasia region with the Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC), Ministry of National Development, Singapore.

Objectives of the kick-off meeting:

The meeting served as a platform for EUD Singapore, CLC, and IURC

To meet and share their aspirations, and potential areas CLC would like to strengthen in relation to urban and regional cooperation with European cities in specific thematic cluster networks.
To generate a better understanding of what the EU-Singapore city-to-city cooperation hopes to achieve from 2025-2027.
To ask questions to align thoughts on the targeted focused areas of cooperation.
To receive advice from European counterparts, to manage expectations of CLC – what to expect and how IURC Asia-Australasia facilitates this process.

Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC), Singapore

Mr. Michael Koh, Executive Fellow, warmly welcomed all attendees to the meeting and gave a concise summary on the latest progress updates on CLC. He explained that CLC in Singapore and Urban Innovation Vienna (UIV) have a partnership focused on research and collaborative publications related to liveable cities. This partnership includes a joint publication on affordable housing and a broader collaboration that was formalized with a Research Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in June 2023. The partnership also extends to participation in events like the World Cities Summit’s Mayors Forum in Vienna from 2-4 July 2025 where Pablo Gándara, Team Leader, attended on behalf of the IURC programme.

Delegation of the European Union to Singapore

Ms. Justyna Lasik, Head of Economic and Trade Section, her opening remarks thanked the CLC for their kind invitation. She highlighted that the European Union and Singapore have indeed signed the most agreements among ASEAN member states. This includes the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA), the EU-Singapore Investment Protection Agreement (EUSIPA), and the EU-Singapore Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (ESPCA). Additionally, they have recently concluded negotiations on a Digital Trade Agreement (EUSDTA). In relation to EU-ASEAN relations, while the EU has a strong relationship with ASEAN as a whole, she opined and shared that the bilateral agreements between the EU-Singapore are more comprehensive in comparison with other ASEAN member states. She then outlined the programme’s goals, emphasising its focus on sustainable urban development, climate mitigation and climate adaptation through city-to-city cooperation, and thanked the CLC for confirming their participation (CLC letterhead dated 21 July 2025).

International Urban and Regional Cooperation (IURC) programme

Mr. Pablo Gándara, Team Leader, expressed his gratitude to the CLC Singapore for the invitation to participate in the World Mayors Forum 2025 held in early July in Vienna. “Partnering with the CLC in such high-level meetings strengthens the IURC subnational diplomacy efforts”, he said. Mr. Gándara then provided an introduction to the IURC Asia-Australasia programme, the groundwork for an effective and impactful cooperation journey under the IURC framework. He shared a detailed overview of the programme’s structure and next steps, with the aim of fostering meaningful urban partnerships and addressing urbanization challenges over the next three years. Then he outlined the cooperation scheme in detail for the next three years, including the selection of European cities and regions, thematic cluster cooperation starting on 3 September 2025, and events in Barcelona (2025), Singapore (2026), and Brussels (2027). He emphasized the World Cities Summit 2026 where CLC is the main curator and organizer, stressing that the IURC team is fully supportive of this important knowledge-sharing platform in Asia and beyond. He also emphasized the importance of shared priorities and mutual learning in concrete pilot projects and mentioned the launch of a competitive fund in 2026 to support implementation of these projects.

Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) Singapore

Ms. Elaine Tan, Director Research, invited Ms. Ren Ai Lim, Assistant Director Research, to present their slide deck focusing on Affordable Housing (overarching thematic topic) where 80% of Singapore’s residents live in public housing and how the key thematic focus areas on Green and Clean Thematic Network on Climate Adaptation and Just and Inclusive Thematic Network on Urban Regeneration are key in achieving Singapore’s urban planning agenda. The flagship projects are:

Urban Innovations: HDB Green Towns and liveability (reducing energy consumption, reducing waste, recycling rainwater, cooling HDB Towns, promoting green commute)
Punggol Town of 200,000 people is a result of innovations in housing, water infrastructure, urban design, transport, smart technologies and greening – e.g. Tree Lodge @Punggol
Allotment Gardens in 25 parks and allotments island wide
Building Community Resilience @ Cambridge Road Project : Community Climate Action Plans
Enhancing ecosystem services to reduce urban heat island (UHI) effects.

Some proposals of what CLC hopes to learn from EU cities are:

Passive design strategies that have been most effective in mitigating urban heat island (UHI) effect within housing developments.
Lessons from applying nature-based solutions at scale in housing estates, and the type of performance used to evaluate their climate impact.
How inter agency coordination and/or public-private partnerships are leveraged to deliver climate adaptive housing at scale.
Climate Adaptive retrofitting policies and regulations for housing developments.
Communication or co-creation strategies that can be tweaked to fit the local context in Singapore to secure community buy-in for climate adaptation measures in housing developments.

Mr. Michael Koh also mentioned that in terms of collaboration with EU and non-EU cities, if Amsterdam and Sydney are part of the IURC programme, they would be also interested to learn about their distinct nightlife experiences with best practices revolving around safety, respecting local culture, and understanding the vibe of different districts.

Questions & Answers (Interactive) Session: European-Singaporean Urban Learning Initiative

International Urban and Regional Cooperation (IURC) programme

Ms. Jacqueline Chang, Country Manager for Malaysia and Singapore proposed to position CLC as a lighthouse city to lead a masterclass with EU lighthouse cities for Affordable Housing focusing on high-demand topics which also covers cross-cutting topics such as climate adaptation and urban regeneration at Barcelona Smart City Expo 2025 (4 November 2025). Additionally, Mr. Stewart Tan, Deputy Director, Research also suggested that the outreach would be higher if it were implemented in a hybrid format due to many international events taking place that week.

Proposal from CLC on masterclass content:

Know-how on concept development, how it was driven and implemented by private parties.
Age and demographics are key and can be included during the masterclass!
Their experience working with Vienna top rank ! Impacts on livelihoods!
Redefinition of affordable housing.
Public housing, when designed and managed well, can be a crucial tool for creating equitable and liveable urban environments. However, achieving this requires a multi-pronged approach that considers not only physical infrastructure but also social and economic factors.
Application of vertical and horizontal principles (integration).
Access to land banks (Singapore and Vienna examples).

Mr. Pablo Gándara stressed the importance of mutual learning and practical outcomes, and shared both the Portico Platform website and the European Urban Initiative (EUI) as a platform for further collaboration, by drawing inspiration from the Urban Agenda for the EU Thematic Partnerships (read here) related to topics discussed and invited the CLC to explore it further throughout the collaboration.

Ms. Elaine Tan provided advance notice that the following publications will be given to the IURC team at the end of the meeting. The list of publications is:

A group photo was taken at the entrance of CLC’s office where the representatives of EUD Singapore and IURC AA presented knowledge materials to CLC’s team members and vice versa. This was an important moment as the exchange of knowledge materials between EU-Singapore representatives is crucial for global progress, fostering innovation, economic growth, and cultural understanding. This exchange occurred during after the kick-off meeting demonstrated appreciation of urban and regional collaborations, international trade, and cultural exchanges, strengthening and fostering the EU-Singapore bilateral relations.

For more information please contact Ms. Jacqueline Chang, Country Manager for Malaysia and Singapore at jchang@iurc.eu