We commission short pieces or provocations to stimulate debate, enable people to air their opinions and suggest solutions.
Found 37 Results
Regional disparities have haunted policy makers in the UK for generations – regional economic agencies have come and gone, motorways were built to reconnect economic centres, subsidies were tried and then more market forces. But, as we emerge from the pandemic, ‘levelling up’ has come to be ‘the defining mission of this government’, according to Michael Gove. In this provocation, John Lotherington questions the leveling up strategy.
As we move ever closer to 2030 – the arbitrary endpoint for the collectively agreed UN Sustainable Development Goals – and in a year when the commitments of the climate negotiations at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, COP26 will need to be further strengthened, we do not have the luxury to stay in our comfort zones, or just comment from the side-lines. Agreeing and negotiating how we go forward, in a fair way, will be tough. It requires us to roll up our sleeves, banish any presumption of easy ‘win-wins’, and engage with people with whom we may not easily get on.
If the recent COP26 tells us anything, it’s that different ways of making hard decisions about our shared futures are needed. Too often critical decisions are made through last minute compromises, hammered out amongst small groups of negotiators behind closed doors, with the voices of those who are most vulnerable to the ravages of the climate crisis excluded.
The Wellbeing for Future Generations (Wales) Act became law in 2015. It is now 6 years since the Act became law and we are entering a critical period with transition from key leaders, local authority elections and with enough time passed to judge whether the Act has actually made any difference to how Wales is governed – although not enough to see whether it has made a difference for future generations. So, has the Act achieved what we hoped for Wales?
In response to the provocations by Peter Davies and Sándor Fülöp at the FDSD event 'A Future Generations Commissioner for the UK', Andrea Westall argues that we need to think beyond institutions in isolation. While Commissioners may have an important role to play, we need to be creative in developing governance structures that promote long-term thinking at all levels.
In this provocation, Peter Davies offers personal reflections on his role in the development of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales within the broader story of the journey of devolution – a journey that started with the duty to promote sustainable development in the initial Government of Wales Act. His role in this story begins in 2006 when he was appointed to the UK Sustainable Development Commission as Commissioner for Wales.
The imminent ecological crises and our consumer society's lack of receptivity to this bad news mean that an independent, authentic voice is needed to represent the interests of future generations. In this provocation, Sándor Fülöp draws on his experience as Hungarian Ombudsman to explain the necessity and powers of a future generations organisation.
In response to the provocations by Peter Davies and Sándor Fülöp at the FDSD event ‘A Future Generations Commissioner for the UK‘, Victor Anderson reminds us that there are a variety of approaches to safeguarding the interests of future generations. Our focus can be on any of the three different traditional branches of government in the UK: the executive, legislature, and judiciary.
The economy is an area of decision-making fiercely protected by experts and politicians from public participation. But public confidence in this closed policy community is waning and arguments for democratic participation in an area that so profoundly shapes all our lives are growing. Against this backdrop, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) has launched an exciting project in 2016: the Citizens’ Economic Council (CEC). T
Charlotte Burns and Viviane Gravey argue that the EU Referendum debate in the UK has been "surprisingly quiet on the issue of the environment". They look at three options for the UK from the point of view of their impacts on participatory democracy, as well as point to the tension between participation and stable long term rules for environmental protection.
They believe that the terms of the current debate are far too narrow. "National sovereignty is essentially a red herring that offers little in the way of genuine democratisation of environmental (or any other) policy area."