Posted By Halina Ward
on 16th July, 2010
The Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, has just made a strong statement on the link between democracy and sustainable development in an article titled “Rapid and sustainable development – The kernel in Việt Nam’s socio-economic development strategy.“
Naturally, Vietnam’s democracy is a socialist one, which makes the express commitment to link democracy to sustainable development somehow all the more interesting. Liberal democracies in other parts of the world might also reflect on this.
The particular emphasis on expanding ‘direct democracy’, linked as it is to a stern reference to ‘discipline and rule’, is intriguing.
I don’t know Vietnam well (having last visited in 1992, just a couple of months after the Rio Earth Summit). If anyone reading has reflections on the Vietnamese approach to linking democracy and sustainable development – particularly on what it could mean in practice and whether there are any lessons for other countries – I’d…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 15th July, 2010
FDSD Vice-Chair Ian Christie and I headed to the home of former trustee Sir Geoffrey Chandler and his wife Lucy for lunch yesterday. And our conversation turned to intergenerational thinking, and to the challenges of integrating long-termism and regard for future generations into political democracy.
Sustainable development has long been inextricably linked to the idea of ‘intergenerational equity’, that is, fairness as between generations alive today and those yet to be born, whom philosopher and green party politician Rupert Read dubs ‘future people’.
The underlying challenge is one which we and our co-signatories identified in an open letter to Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg (we await a reply). And it has also received Select Committee attention in the UK, with a 2007 report of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Governing the Future.
Here at FDSD, we have in the past pointed to institutional innovations such as Hungary’s Parliamentary Commissioner for…
