Building bridges across communities and bottom up accountability I Tricia Yeoh

Tricia Yeoh, Chief Executive Officer of IDEAS in Malaysia delivered this keynote address at the OTT Conference 2024, at Fundacio Bofill, Barcelona, Spain. 


Malaysia is a highly complex society comprising communities from multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds. Polarisation of race and the widening divide between liberals and conservatives in recent years, exacerbated by social media, have split communities further. Similar trends are taking place across many other regions. How can think tanks help build bridges across communities? What networks and partnerships need to be activated?

Dr Tricia Yeoh shares her organisation’s experience of strategically positioning themselves to build bridges across divided communities in Malaysia, as well as working with communities at the subnational level to build bottom-up accountability and policy reform, concluding with thoughts for the think tank ecosystem at large. Read transcript.