Welcome to the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development
Welcome to the website of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development.
We are a small charity working to develop ideas and innovative practices so that democratic decision-making can work better for sustainable development.
We believe that democracy will need to adapt and evolve to meet twenty-first century sustainable development challenges, and that it will need to do so fast.
Issues like climate change, resource scarcity and population growth will create huge pressures for democratic decision-making. The risk is that badly prepared democracies may become less democratic as a result of these pressures.
Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts to make sure that democracy is resilient.
Our events, analysis and engagement aim to work out who needs to do what to make sure that democracy delivers sustainable development.
“If we want to tackle climate change, we will need more democracy not less. Not only within countries, but also between countries“.
Chandra Bhushan, Associate Director, Centre for Science and Environment
“Unsustainable development has been described as the biggest market failure the world has ever seen. Yet surely it is the biggest failure of democracy the world has ever seen.”
Sara Parkin, Founder Director, Forum for the Future
“[We need] a democracy for posterity, an ecological democracy that enables both the citizen and the representative to be capable of designing sustainable futures for a very long way ahead…”
Professor Tim O’Riordan
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