Executive Summary
A devastating revelation from Nepal has exposed one of South Asia’s most severe public health crises: over 60 percent of households are consuming sewage-contaminated drinking water. This is not merely a distant humanitarian concern—it carries significant implications for Singapore, particularly given the substantial Nepali migrant worker population that forms a crucial backbone of the city-state’s economy and infrastructure.
The Scale of the Crisis
The Nepal Multiple Indicator Survey (MICS) 2024-25, released on February 9, 2026, revealed findings that sent shockwaves through the public health community. Testing of drinking water samples from households throughout Nepal found deadly microbes, including Escherichia coli (E. coli), in over 60 percent of samples. E. coli, an organism that lives in the intestines of warm-blooded animals and their feces, serves as an unmistakable indicator that water supplies have been contaminated with sewage.
Dr. Sher Bahadur Pun, chief of the Clinical Research Unit at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital in Kathmandu, characterized the findings as alarming, noting that while pathogenic microbes in Nepal’s drinking water are not new, the scale of contamination affecting the majority of the population represents a fundamental failure of water infrastructure.
The Infrastructure Paradox
What makes this crisis particularly troubling is the disconnect between technical classification and actual safety. The survey found that 98.2 percent of Nepal’s population uses what is classified as an “improved source” of drinking water. Yet despite this nominally high coverage, more than six in ten drinking water samples failed basic safety standards. This reveals that infrastructure designated as “improved” is failing to deliver on its fundamental promise: pathogen-free water.
An official at Nepal’s Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, speaking on condition of anonymity, articulated the core problem: “The report shows almost everyone drinks water from an improved source, yet over 60 percent of drinking water samples were contaminated with deadly microbes. This means the so-called improved sources have yet to be improved.”
The contamination appears linked to inadequate sanitation infrastructure. While 92.4 percent of household members use improved sanitation facilities, only 79.9 percent use improved toilets exclusively, leaving significant opportunities for fecal contamination to enter water supplies. Most drinking water sources are contaminated during the monsoon season when rainwater carries sewage into water systems. Even bottled water, typically considered safe, has previously tested positive for pathogenic microbes.
Public Health Consequences in Nepal
The human cost of this water crisis manifests in brutal clarity every year. Thousands of Nepalis across the country contract water-borne diseases, particularly during the monsoon season from June to September. The diseases include dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis A and E, and cholera. The survey also documented devastating child mortality rates: 17 newborns per 1,000 die before reaching one month, 27 before reaching one year, and 31 before reaching five years of age.
Disease Burden and Epidemiological Patterns
International health advisories consistently rank Nepal among the highest-risk countries globally for typhoid and paratyphoid fever. The prevalence of fluoroquinolone-resistant strains of typhoid-causing bacteria has made treatment increasingly challenging. Beyond bacterial diseases, intestinal protozoal pathogens like Cyclospora cayetanensis are highly endemic, with transmission occurring almost exclusively during May through October, peaking in June and July.
Hepatitis E virus presents another endemic threat, with several cases diagnosed annually among expatriates and visitors. Travelers’ diarrhea risk during the spring trekking season (March-May) is double that of the fall season (October-November), reflecting the seasonal variation in water quality and pathogen prevalence.
Singapore’s Nepali Migrant Worker Population
To understand why Nepal’s water crisis matters to Singapore, one must first appreciate the scope of labor migration between these nations. Nepal has experienced dramatic growth in overseas labor migration, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2023, Nepal recorded a 102 percent increase in outbound migrant workers—the highest among 13 major Asian countries of origin studied by the International Labour Organization, Asian Development Bank Institute, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Migration Patterns and Destinations
While Malaysia has emerged as the most popular destination with 219,357 Nepali workers in 2023, Singapore remains a significant destination, particularly for skilled and semi-skilled workers. The broader context shows that foreign workers constitute approximately 25 percent of Singapore’s total workforce, with unskilled and low-skilled workers employed under the Work Permit scheme forming a substantial component.
Research from 2015 documented more than 870,000 foreign workers in Singapore out of a total population of 5.5 million. Workers from South Asian countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, and India form the backbone of Singapore’s construction, manufacturing, and shipyard industries. Historical migration patterns reveal that certain Nepali ethnic groups, particularly Gurungs and Magars, have long-standing connections to Singapore through service in the Singapore Police Force, creating established migration corridors.
The Economic Imperative
Singapore’s reliance on foreign labor is not incidental—it is structural. As a knowledge-based economy with no natural resources, Singapore requires substantial investment in infrastructure projects. Foreign workers provide the labor force necessary for construction, manufacturing, and shipyard work that supports the country’s rapid economic growth. This arrangement has helped Singapore maintain its status as one of the world’s wealthiest nations while keeping labor costs competitive.
Health Risks: The Singapore Connection
The intersection of Nepal’s water crisis and Singapore’s migrant worker population creates several distinct public health considerations that merit serious attention from policymakers and public health authorities.
Pre-Migration Health Status and Exposure History
Workers arriving from Nepal carry with them the cumulative health impacts of prolonged exposure to contaminated water. Many will have experienced repeated bouts of water-borne diseases throughout their lives, potentially leading to:
Chronic Gastrointestinal Complications: Repeated infections can cause long-term damage to the digestive system, including chronic inflammation, malabsorption syndromes, and altered gut microbiota. Workers may arrive in Singapore with underlying gastrointestinal conditions that may not be immediately apparent but could affect their health and productivity.
Hepatitis Exposure and Chronic Liver Disease: With hepatitis A and E endemic in Nepal, a substantial portion of arriving workers will have been exposed to these viruses. While hepatitis A typically causes acute illness, hepatitis E can occasionally progress to chronic infection, particularly in immunocompromised individuals. The long-term hepatic consequences may only manifest years later.
Typhoid-Related Complications: Nepal’s extraordinarily high typhoid incidence means many workers will have experienced this serious systemic infection. Even after recovery, some individuals may become asymptomatic carriers, capable of transmitting the bacteria to others. The prevalence of fluoroquinolone-resistant strains in Nepal raises concerns about treatment effectiveness if reactivation or transmission occurs in Singapore.
Parasitic Infections: Endemic intestinal parasites, including Cyclospora and various helminths, may persist in asymptomatic carriers. These can cause intermittent symptoms and, in some cases, be transmitted in settings with inadequate hygiene practices.
Nutritional Deficits: Chronic water-borne diseases during formative years can lead to malnutrition and stunted growth. Workers may arrive with underlying nutritional deficiencies that affect their immune function and resilience to workplace stresses.
Dormitory Living Conditions: A Critical Vulnerability
Singapore houses many migrant workers in purpose-built dormitories and other forms of communal housing. While Singapore’s tap water meets World Health Organization guidelines and undergoes rigorous treatment and testing—with the Public Utilities Board conducting over 500,000 tests annually—the dormitory environment itself presents unique considerations.
Water Infrastructure in Dormitories: The Foreign Employee Dormitories Act (FEDA), enacted in 2015, establishes mandatory living standards including access to potable drinking water. Licensed dormitory operators must provide commercial-grade water systems, often including water coolers with hot and cold functionality to accommodate diverse cultural practices.
However, the quality of water leaving Singapore’s treatment plants, while excellent, can potentially be affected by aging or poorly maintained internal plumbing within buildings. Although Singapore’s centralized water management system ensures consistent quality at the distribution point, the “last mile” of delivery through building-specific infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance and monitoring.
Density and Disease Transmission: Purpose-built dormitories typically house workers in high-density configurations. While regulations implemented after September 2021 set a maximum of 12 workers per room (reduced from previous limits of 16 or 20), advocacy groups report continued variability in actual conditions. Some workers have reported rooms housing significantly more occupants, with one account describing 26 workers in a single room.
This density creates environments where communicable diseases can spread rapidly. The COVID-19 pandemic starkly illustrated this vulnerability: as of August 2021, low-wage migrant workers living in dormitories accounted for 82.4 percent of COVID cases in Singapore, despite representing a much smaller fraction of the total population. Citizens and permanent residents accounted for only 9.8 percent of cases during the same period.
Shared Facilities and Hygiene Challenges: Communal bathrooms, kitchens, and dining facilities create multiple potential transmission points for enteric pathogens. While modern purpose-built dormitories include improved amenities—food courts, supermarkets, recreation facilities—the fundamental challenge of maintaining hygiene in high-occupancy shared spaces remains.
Return Travel and Recontamination Risk
Many migrant workers return to Nepal periodically to visit family or during gaps between employment contracts. These return visits expose them once again to contaminated water sources, creating a cyclical pattern of exposure. Upon returning to Singapore, workers may carry active infections or become asymptomatic carriers of pathogens, potentially introducing disease into the dormitory population.
The health risks associated with return travel are well-documented in travel medicine. International travelers to Nepal consistently face high rates of travelers’ diarrhea and other enteric infections, even with precautions. Workers returning to rural areas of Nepal, where water and sanitation infrastructure is even more limited than in Kathmandu, face particularly elevated risks.
Singapore’s Water Security: A Comparative Perspective
Singapore’s approach to water management stands in stark contrast to Nepal’s crisis, offering both lessons in effective governance and highlighting the disparities that shape global health outcomes.
The Four National Taps Strategy
Singapore has achieved water security through its comprehensive “Four National Taps” approach, which ensures supply resilience through diversification:
Local Catchment Water: Singapore has transformed two-thirds of its land area into water catchment zones, collecting rainfall through an extensive network of drains, canals, rivers, and reservoirs. Rigorous watershed management prevents pollution from entering water sources.
Imported Water: Singapore imports water from Johor, Malaysia, under the 1962 Water Agreement, which entitles Singapore to draw up to 250 million gallons of raw water daily from the Johor River until 2061.
NEWater: Introduced in 2002, NEWater represents high-grade reclaimed water produced through microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet disinfection. This closed-loop system has passed more than 150,000 scientific tests and consistently exceeds WHO and US Environmental Protection Agency standards. NEWater currently meets up to 40 percent of Singapore’s water needs.
Desalinated Water: Two desalination plants produce water meeting up to 25 percent of demand, providing a weather-resilient source independent of rainfall or regional cooperation.
Regulatory Framework and Quality Assurance
Singapore’s water safety is ensured through a dual regulatory framework. The Public Utilities Board manages water supply and treatment, while the National Environment Agency independently monitors water quality standards based on WHO guidelines.
The Environmental Public Health (Water Suitable for Drinking) Regulations 2019 prescribe stringent standards for over 100 parameters, including:
– Microbiological parameters: Total coliforms, E. coli, enterococci must be absent
– Chemical parameters: Heavy metals (lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium), organic compounds, disinfection byproducts
– Physical parameters: Turbidity, pH, color, odor
– Radiological parameters: Gross alpha and beta activity
Continuous online monitoring and extensive laboratory testing ensure compliance. Water quality is tracked in real-time at every stage from collection through treatment to distribution. The Public Utilities Board Water Quality Laboratory holds accreditation from the Singapore Accreditation Council and has been designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for safe drinking-water management since 2012.
Implications for Migrant Worker Health
This sophisticated water infrastructure means that migrant workers in Singapore have access to water quality far superior to what they experienced in Nepal. This represents a significant health benefit of their migration. However, the transition from contaminated to clean water does not immediately reverse the cumulative effects of years of exposure to pathogens.
Furthermore, Singapore’s water security creates an obligation: ensuring that all residents, including migrant workers in dormitories, actually benefit from this infrastructure. While regulations mandate access to potable water, the implementation and maintenance of water systems within dormitories requires ongoing vigilance.
Workplace Health and Productivity Implications
The health status of migrant workers directly impacts Singapore’s economic sectors that depend on their labor. Construction, manufacturing, and shipyard industries—crucial to Singapore’s infrastructure and economy—rely heavily on foreign workers from countries including Nepal.
Direct Health Impacts on Productivity
Workers arriving with chronic health conditions or recurring illnesses from past water-borne diseases may experience:
Reduced Work Capacity: Chronic gastrointestinal issues, liver damage from hepatitis, or nutritional deficits can diminish physical endurance and work capacity. This may not manifest as frank illness but rather as reduced productivity and increased fatigue.
Absenteeism: Active infections acquired during return visits to Nepal can lead to sick leave. Water-borne diseases like typhoid can cause severe illness requiring hospitalization, removing workers from the labor force for extended periods.
Chronic Disease Management: Long-term complications from repeated infections may require ongoing medical care, creating additional healthcare costs for employers who are responsible for their workers’ medical treatment under Singapore law.
Workplace Transmission Risks
Certain water-borne pathogens can be transmitted through person-to-person contact or contaminated surfaces, particularly in settings with shared facilities. Asymptomatic carriers of typhoid, for example, can shed bacteria in feces and, with inadequate handwashing, potentially contaminate shared spaces or food.
Construction sites, where workers may have limited access to handwashing facilities and eat in communal settings, present particular challenges for infection control. Manufacturing and shipyard environments with shared cafeterias and rest areas similarly create potential transmission pathways.
Economic Costs
The economic implications extend beyond individual worker productivity. Outbreaks of water-borne diseases in dormitories or worksites could necessitate quarantine measures, halting construction projects or manufacturing operations. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how quickly dormitory-based disease clusters can impact Singapore’s construction sector, with multiple projects experiencing significant delays when workers were placed under movement restrictions.
Employers bear direct costs for worker healthcare under Singapore’s Work Permit system. Treatment for severe water-borne diseases, including hospitalization for typhoid or hepatitis, represents significant expense. Medical evacuation to higher-level facilities for complications adds further costs.
Social and Ethical Dimensions
Beyond epidemiological and economic considerations, Nepal’s water crisis and its connection to Singapore raises profound ethical questions about labor migration, inequality, and duty of care.
The Moral Economy of Migration
Workers leave Nepal in part because of poor living conditions at home, including inadequate access to safe water and sanitation. The 102 percent increase in Nepali labor migration between 2019 and 2023 reflects worsening economic conditions that push workers abroad. Water insecurity intersects with broader patterns of poverty, agricultural challenges, and limited domestic employment opportunities.
Singapore benefits economically from this migration, obtaining labor at costs lower than would be required to attract Singaporean citizens to physically demanding work in construction and manufacturing. This arrangement has allowed Singapore’s infrastructure to keep pace with economic growth while maintaining competitive labor costs.
However, this relationship carries ethical obligations. Workers who contribute to Singapore’s prosperity deserve safe living conditions and access to healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant gaps in the duty of care extended to migrant workers, with cramped dormitories facilitating rapid disease transmission and workers facing movement restrictions, separation from social support networks, and increased mental health challenges.
Structural Vulnerabilities
Migrant workers in Singapore face what researchers characterize as “structured vulnerability” arising from their legal and social position:
Employment Tied to Single Employer: Work permits bind workers to specific employers, limiting mobility and bargaining power. Workers who raise complaints about living conditions or workplace safety risk deportation, creating strong disincentives to advocate for better conditions.
Social Segregation: Purpose-built dormitories are typically located in industrial areas, physically separated from residential neighborhoods. During the pandemic, this segregation intensified, with workers confined to dormitories and requiring passes to leave. This spatial isolation creates what some scholars term an “invisible class,” removed from public view and public concern.
Limited Labor Protections: Foreign workers under Work Permits lack key labor protections afforded to Singaporean workers. They are barred from organizing unions or serving as union leaders without explicit government permission. They have no minimum wage protection and face standardized working hours that may not reflect actual work demands.
Health Service Access Disparities: While employers must provide medical care, workers often face practical barriers to accessing healthcare, including language barriers, lack of knowledge about their rights, and fear of financial penalties or deportation if they report illness or injury.
High Recruitment Costs and Debt Bondage: Many Nepali workers pay substantial recruitment fees—often equivalent to months or years of salary—to secure employment in Singapore. This debt creates financial pressure to accept poor conditions rather than risk job loss. Although Singapore criminalized kickbacks in 2012, enforcement remains challenging, and workers continue to report high upfront costs.
Surveillance and Digital Control
The COVID-19 pandemic led to extensive deployment of surveillance technologies in migrant worker dormitories, including contact tracing apps, wastewater surveillance, CCTV monitoring, and mandatory health reporting. Workers were required to check symptoms three times daily through apps that tracked their health status and movement.
Research examining these surveillance systems argues they function as “experimental sites” for testing technologies that may later be deployed more broadly. The racialized nature of this surveillance—concentrated on South Asian migrant workers living in segregated spaces—raises concerns about differential treatment based on national origin and social status.
Policy Implications and Recommendations
Addressing the intersection of Nepal’s water crisis and Singapore’s migrant worker population requires coordinated action across multiple domains.
Health Screening and Occupational Health
Enhanced Pre-Arrival Screening: Current medical screening for Work Permit holders should be expanded to include more comprehensive assessment of water-borne disease exposure history and chronic consequences. This should include liver function tests to detect hepatitis-related damage, screening for chronic parasitic infections, and nutritional status assessment.
Post-Arrival Health Support: Workers arriving from Nepal would benefit from a structured health program during their first months in Singapore, including health education about Singapore’s safe water supply, guidance on maintaining hygiene in dormitory settings, and accessible primary care for addressing any ongoing health issues.
Routine Occupational Health Monitoring: Regular health assessments throughout workers’ employment can identify emerging issues early and provide opportunities for health promotion interventions.
Dormitory Standards and Enforcement
Water Quality Monitoring: While Singapore’s municipal water supply is excellent, regular testing of water quality at the point of use in dormitories would provide assurance that internal plumbing systems maintain standards. This could be incorporated into the existing Foreign Employee Dormitories Act compliance framework.
Density Regulations: Stronger enforcement of room occupancy limits and elimination of exceptions would reduce disease transmission risk. The stated maximum of 12 workers per room should be strictly maintained, with penalties for violations.
Hygiene Infrastructure: Adequate handwashing facilities with soap should be strategically located throughout dormitories, particularly near dining areas and toilet facilities. The ratio of toilet and shower facilities to residents should be regulated to prevent overcrowding.
Outbreak Preparedness: Dormitory operators should maintain detailed outbreak response plans for water-borne and other communicable diseases, including protocols for isolation, medical care, and notification of health authorities.
Labor Rights and Worker Empowerment
Simplified Change of Employer Process: Reforms to make it easier for workers to change employers without risking deportation would reduce vulnerability and enable workers to leave situations with poor living conditions or health hazards.
Access to Healthcare Without Penalty: Clear policies ensuring workers can seek medical care without fear of job loss or deportation would encourage early treatment of illnesses, benefiting both individual and public health.
Worker Education Programs: Multilingual health education programs delivered in languages spoken by Nepali workers (Nepali, various regional languages) would empower workers to understand their health risks and rights.
Right to Organize: Allowing migrant workers to form representative organizations and participate in collective bargaining would create mechanisms for workers to advocate for better conditions without facing individual retaliation.
Bilateral Cooperation and Development Support
Singapore-Nepal Health Collaboration: Singapore could leverage its expertise in water management and public health to support capacity building in Nepal. Technical assistance programs, training of Nepali water engineers and public health professionals, and knowledge sharing could contribute to addressing the root causes driving migration.
Pre-Departure Orientation Programs: Collaboration between Singapore and Nepal to provide comprehensive pre-departure orientation for migrant workers could better prepare them for the transition, including information about Singapore’s health system, worker rights, and how to access support services.
Remittance-Linked Development: Facilitating the productive use of worker remittances for community-level water and sanitation improvements in Nepal could create long-term benefits for source communities.
Research and Surveillance
Longitudinal Health Studies: Research tracking the health trajectories of Nepali migrant workers from pre-departure through their time in Singapore and after return would generate valuable evidence about the health impacts of migration and identify intervention points.
Disease Surveillance Systems: Integration of migrant worker populations into Singapore’s disease surveillance systems, with appropriate protections for confidentiality and immigration status, would enable early detection of disease clusters and facilitate timely public health responses.
Social Determinants Research: Studies examining the social determinants of health among migrant workers—including housing conditions, work environments, social support, and access to healthcare—would inform evidence-based policy development.
Regional and Global Context
Nepal’s water crisis is not an isolated phenomenon but reflects broader patterns of water insecurity and inadequate sanitation affecting much of South and Southeast Asia. The region faces multiple intersecting challenges:
Climate Change Impacts: Rising temperatures, altered monsoon patterns, glacial melt, and sea-level rise are affecting water availability and quality throughout the region. Bangladesh faces displacement of 15 to 30 million people in coming decades due to flooding and salinity intrusion affecting agriculture and fisheries.
Rapid Urbanization: Cities throughout South and Southeast Asia are growing faster than water and sanitation infrastructure can expand. Informal settlements often lack basic services, creating conditions where water-borne disease transmission flourishes.
Transboundary Water Management: Many Asian water sources cross national boundaries, requiring regional cooperation for sustainable management. Conflicts over water rights and upstream/downstream impacts complicate governance.
Financing Gaps: The investment required to achieve universal access to safe water and sanitation is substantial. Many countries face constraints in public finances and struggle to attract private investment for infrastructure that may not generate immediate returns.
Migration as Adaptation and Vulnerability
Migration increasingly functions as an adaptation strategy to environmental stress, including water insecurity. As conditions worsen in countries like Nepal, outward migration intensifies. This creates a paradox: migration may provide individual economic benefits and remittance income for source communities, but it does not address the underlying environmental and governance failures that necessitated migration in the first place.
Furthermore, migration itself can create vulnerabilities, as workers face exploitation, hazardous conditions, and social isolation in destination countries. The relationship between environmental degradation in source countries and labor conditions in destination countries deserves greater attention in both development and labor rights policy.
Singapore’s Role and Responsibility
As a wealthy nation with advanced infrastructure and technical capacity, Singapore has both the ability and arguably the responsibility to contribute to addressing regional water challenges. This could take several forms:
Technical Assistance and Knowledge Transfer: Singapore’s expertise in water management, demonstrated through NEWater and comprehensive catchment management, represents a valuable resource that could be shared with regional partners.
Investment in Regional Infrastructure: Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds and government-linked companies could direct investment toward water and sanitation infrastructure in source countries, creating mutual benefits through improved health and economic conditions that may reduce distress migration.
Leadership in Labor Standards: Singapore could enhance its position as a destination country by implementing and enforcing stronger protections for migrant workers, demonstrating that economic development and worker welfare are compatible objectives.
Research and Innovation: Singapore’s universities and research institutions could expand programs focused on affordable water and sanitation solutions suitable for resource-constrained settings, generating innovations that could be deployed in Nepal and similar contexts.
Conclusion: Interconnected Challenges Require Integrated Responses
Nepal’s water crisis—with over 60 percent of households consuming sewage-contaminated water—represents one of the most severe public health emergencies in contemporary South Asia. The human cost, measured in thousands of annual water-borne disease cases and elevated child mortality, demands urgent attention and action.
For Singapore, this crisis is not a distant humanitarian concern but rather an issue with direct and ongoing implications. The Nepali migrant workers who contribute to Singapore’s construction, manufacturing, and service sectors carry with them the health impacts of prolonged exposure to contaminated water. Understanding these workers’ health histories and addressing their ongoing needs is essential both as a matter of ethical obligation and practical necessity.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in how Singapore houses and cares for its migrant worker population. Dormitory environments, characterized by high density and shared facilities, facilitated rapid disease transmission. While Singapore has made improvements to dormitory standards, ongoing vigilance is required to ensure that all residents—including temporary migrant workers—benefit from the same high-quality water and sanitation infrastructure available to other residents.
More fundamentally, the intersection of Nepal’s water crisis and Singapore’s labor migration patterns illuminates broader questions about inequality, development, and responsibility in an interconnected world. Workers migrate from Nepal in part because of inadequate infrastructure and limited opportunities at home. Singapore benefits from this migration economically. This relationship creates obligations: to ensure safe and dignified conditions for workers, to avoid exploitation of their vulnerability, and potentially to contribute to addressing the root causes that necessitate migration.
Effective responses require action at multiple levels:
– Individual worker health screening, monitoring, and support
– Enhanced dormitory standards and enforcement
– Stronger labor protections and worker empowerment
– Bilateral cooperation between Singapore and Nepal on health and development
– Regional efforts to address water security challenges
– Global recognition of the connections between environmental degradation, migration, and labor rights
Water is life. Access to safe water is a fundamental human right, enshrined in international declarations yet denied to billions globally. Nepal’s water crisis reminds us that infrastructure failures have human consequences that ripple across borders. Singapore’s response to this crisis—in how it cares for Nepali workers within its borders and whether it contributes to solutions in Nepal—will reflect its values and vision for regional development.
The path forward requires acknowledging that in our interconnected world, public health challenges anywhere ultimately concern everyone. Singapore’s remarkable water security achievements demonstrate what is possible with political will, technical expertise, and sustained investment. The question now is whether that same commitment can be extended, through policy and partnership, to ensure that the workers who build Singapore’s infrastructure can eventually return to homes where safe water flows from every tap.
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