Resilience means keeping essential functions going, adapting to change and building a better place to live over time.
Survival means getting through a crisis while maintaining or restoring essential functions. Singapore's Jobs Credit scheme reduced employers' wage costs during the 2009 recession. The Jobs Support Scheme co-funded local employees' wages during COVID-19 in 2020. Both eased pressure on firms to help retain jobs and household income. They did not prevent every job loss or remove the global downturn.
Adaptability means changing infrastructure, institutions or practices as conditions change. More varied suppliers, improved drains and new workplace skills can make the next disruption easier to manage. Systems also need maintenance, trained staff and clear communication.
Thriving means improving long-term liveability and sustainability, with opportunities, healthy environments and access for different groups. These three aspects can overlap. A water investment may keep supply going now, change how it is produced and improve future reliability. Judge reliability, affordability and environmental effects together.
Step by step
Survive
Keep essential functions going and support affected people.
Adapt
Change weak systems using lessons from disruption.
Thrive
Improve long-term liveability, sustainability and opportunities.
Worked example: Apply the three tests to Singapore
Wage support under the Jobs Support Scheme helped protect jobs during a crisis: survival. NEWater and desalination change the water-supply mix: adaptation. City in Nature links habitats and greenery with a more liveable city: thriving. Check results, costs and access when judging each contribution.
Watch out for this
Resilience means no disruption ever happens.
Resilience is the capacity to manage, adapt and recover despite disruption. It does not make a place immune to hazards or global shocks.
Check your understanding
Which is the clearest example of adaptation?
- Restoring a disrupted service using exactly the same vulnerable arrangement.
- Using lessons from a disruption to add a reliable backup route.
- Assuming a rare crisis cannot happen again.