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…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 1st June, 2010
FOUNDATION FOR DEMOCRACY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
PRESS RELEASE
Civil society call for a ‘new politics of the future’
In an open letter dated 1st June 2010 to Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, a group including chief executives of ten civil society organisations calls for the two to ensure that the government goes beyond ‘New Politics’ to adopt a “New Politics of the Future”.
In their letter, the group warn that short-termism in contemporary politics on issues including climate change, changing demographics, youth unemployment, and environmental and social injustice, could endanger not only the UK’s ability to achieve meaningful progress in these areas, but even democracy itself.
The open letter calls on the Prime Minister to commit to an annual ‘State of the Future’ speech and asks Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg fully to investigate the potential to adopt other mechanisms that could better equip and encourage Members of…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 22nd May, 2010
I’ve just returned from the final session of the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) International Working Group on Social Responsibility. The ‘SR’ Working Group has been driving efforts to develop a consensus-based, globally applicable, voluntary international guidance standard on social responsibility for organisations of all sizes, sectors, and locations.
The draft International Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility has gradually been taking shape over the past five years. ISO is a private nongovernmental body, headquartered in Geneva. And it is also the world’s largest developer of international standards.
The final plenary of the working group in Copenhagen yesterday marked a major milestone: agreement on a revised final draft of the guidance standard. That means that the development of the standard now moves on to the final stages of the process. The next step is to hand a revised draft to ISO’s members (standards bodies from more than 160 countries) for a two-month voting…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 12th May, 2010
I’ve been happily distracted, in all the general election and coalition mayhem and the musings on the implications of Coalition and hung parliaments for sustainable development.. by a visit the Conservation Economy blog. Jon Alexander, one of its founders, told me about it at our event on Mobilising Democracy to Tackle Climate Change. It’s a space “to provoke a fundamental questioning of the role of marketing, advertising and the communications industries in driving consumption”. Hard-core stuff indeed.
In a 29th April 2010 post, Jon draws a key distinction between consumption and Consumerism. And elsewhere on this blog, guest Jules Peck, over at Citizen Renaissance, argues that the mix between consumerism and citizen action for sustainable development needs to be reconfigured in favour of the citizen.
We can expect that these kinds of musings will be key underlying themes in our new UK coalition government as it seeks to redefine the relationship between citizen…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 16th March, 2010
Sustainable development, and party politics in the UK, are both fond advocates of localism and decentralism. In the case of the UK Conservatives, party leader David Cameron promises no less than the most “radical decentralisation” seen in a century if his party is elected. There is something of an environmental zeitgeist in this language too. One of the most visible meta-signals in the aftermath of the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit was disaffection with national and international level government solutions on the part of environmentalist civil society groups, and a corresponding emphasis on the importance of local activism and bottom-up solutions to the challenges of climate change.
Community-based activism on issues such as energy and food seems never to have been so vibrant as it now is in the UK. The phenomenal rise of the Transition Town movement and local ‘climate action networks’ around the country are just two examples.
I’ve been meaning to write this post since the launch…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 15th March, 2010
Give Your Vote, a campaign to get the UK’s voters to donate their votes in the forthcoming General Election to citizens of Bangladesh, Ghana and Afghanistan, is launched today, and seems to be attracting quite some interest in the mainstream media and in the world of social networks.
Give Your Vote is an offshoot from the campaign group Egality Now. The campaigners argue that:
“We think we can do better than a world where politicians from the strongest countries decide for everyone else.
The UK makes decisions about climate change, migration, poverty and war that directly affects millions around the world. There is no democratic means for those outside the UK to have a say in how these decisions are made.
Giving your vote is an act of solidarity with those who do not have a say in the decisions that affect them.
Decisions taken across borders should not mean decisions taken without accountability.
Give your…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 10th March, 2010
FDSD is pleased to announce a collaboration with Schumacher College- the International Centre for Sustainability, Dartington Hall Trust, Salzburg Global Seminar and Goodenough College in London to present an international leadership seminar on ‘Mobilising Democracy to Tackle Climate Change’ in the centre of London on 19-20 April 2010.
The seminar will focus on the central question: what innovations are needed in democracy and participatory decision-making, if we want them to deliver the actions required to mitigate and adapt to climate change?
Priced at £75/Euro 85 for the one and a half day seminar, the programme has been designed for leaders and change makers in central and local governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations and communities, and anyone concerned with mobilising democracy to tackle climate change.
Places for the event are likely to fill soon so please book early to avoid disappointment.
You can read more about the programme, speakers and booking information on the Schumacher College and Salzburg Global Seminar websites.
To whet your appetite further,…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 25th February, 2010
OFFICE OF THE HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF HUNGARY IN LONDON
FOUNDATION FOR DEMOCRACY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
UK ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ASSOCIATION
PRESS RELEASE
Hungary’s Green Ombudsman puts environmental futures at the heart of decision-making
A unique environmental watchdog role – protecting the rights not just of present generations but also future ones – will be explained tonight (25th February) at the Ministry of Justice in London.
What lessons can the UK learn from the role of the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, Dr Sándor Fülöp? Should we be considering a similar role to protect the interests of the most excluded – those who are yet to be born?
In 2007, the Hungarian Parliament created a new independent watchdog – the ‘green ombudsman’ – to safeguard the constitutional right of Hungarian citizens to a healthy environment.
In his speech tonight (25th February) to an invited audience of lawyers, non-governmental organisations,…
Posted By John Lotherington
on 2nd February, 2010
There is a narrative which is emerging on the fringes of green politics – in throw-away comments, or after a few drinks – which characterises Copenhagen as not just the failure of democracies but the failure of democracy itself. (Mark Vernon, for instance, has commented on it)
There have been 20 years and more consciousness raising, bringing the science to the attention of voters, waiting for the increasingly green rhetoric of politicians to turn into the real commitments needed to mitigate climate change. In the meantime, untold billions have been spent on the waste of war, at the whim of a cabal of leaders - though all in the West were democratically elected and all re-elected to further terms of office. The deep disappointment at this is understandable, and the sacred cow of democracy can start to look less sacred and more bovine.
As a consequence, some people are turning to look with some envy at…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 26th January, 2010
Adding to 
some of the themes explored in an earlier post on the idea of the ‘consumer citizen’, this post from guest blogger Jules Peck, over at Citizen Renaissance, argues that the mix between consumerism and citizen action for sustainable development needs to be reconfigured in favour of the citizen.
The entry is also posted here.
——————————————————————-
By Jules Peck
As we remain firmly rooted in our Western economic bath-tub and emerge from the dusts of Copenhagen, it seems ever clearer that Citizens are the missing link for 2010.
Politics continue to fail us and fail to recognise, let alone confront and overcome, the greatest challenges of our time.
The message we put out starting 18 months ago with Citizen Renaissance, is now being taken up by the business community. Even the relatively conservative World Business Council for Sustainable Development is reporting on the need for a shift away from rampant consumerism to more citizen-centric values.
The Worldwatch Institute’s…
Posted By John Elkington
on 28th December, 2009
A reflection by Niall Ferguson in today’s Financial Times on the historical significance of the past decade struck me as particularly apt and insightful. He explores the reasons behind the astonishing – and accelerating – shift to the east in the world’s economic (and, ultimately, political) centre of gravity. In the process, he asks what it was that gave the West its “ascendancy”, through the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the ensuing race around the world, as far as the Antipodes?
His answer is that the West benefited from six “killer apps”. These were: “the capitalist enterprise, the scientific method, a legal and political system based on private property rights and individual freedom, traditional imperialism, the consumer society and what Weber probably misnamed the ‘Protestant’ ethic of work and capital accumulation as ends in themselves.”
Some of these, Ferguson argues, particularly numbers one and two, China has already replicated. Other, and among…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 22nd December, 2009
I’m back in London after a week in Copenhagen at various climate events. Almost everything climate-related that happened in and around Copenhagen over the past two weeks offers rich pickings for reflection on the changing relationship between democracy and climate change.
As we start work on our project here at the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development on ‘the future of democracy in the face of climate change‘, we’ll be reflecting on the big question: what next?
We’ll be looking, not just at the critically important coming twelve months, but beyond, to 2050 and 2100.
So in this blog post I highlight some of the ‘democracy and climate change’ themes that emerged in Copenhagen.
Public protest and climate change
One of the most headline-grabbing issues in Copenhagen concerned the methods used by Danish police to manage very largely peaceful protest.
The images of (mostly police) violence and mass detentions on the streets of Copenhagen run the risk of…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 18th December, 2009
In a new paper published on this website, sustainability campaigner Charles Secrett sets out a possible pathway for achieving revolutionary change towards democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development.
As Charles explains: “Currently, we have no visionary text explaining the intersect between (those heavy but crucial concepts) democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development. The task now upon us, as chaos increasingly bites the world over, is to find a development path that can sustain and improve life, without chasing the chimera of perfect answers to all problems.
With no convenient scripture to hand, is there another way to bring about the kind of revolution that is needed? Can we find that transformative, non-violent route-map that can lift us out of the mess we have created and toward a more fulfilling society, moulded by the principles and practice of democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development?”
We invite your comments. Feel free to post thoughts…
