Tag Archives: Bhutan

Building Women’s Chambers and Associations in South Asia

Posted on 19 February, 2013 by | Comments Off

south asia women entrepreneurship symposium

Hammad Siddiqui, Deputy Country Director for CIPE’s Pakistan field office, contributed to this report.

To begin addressing the issue of why some women’s business organizations thrive while others do not, CIPE recently launched a project to build links among women’s chambers and associations in South Asia.

CIPE identified 11 organizations, from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka – and for the first time reached out to groups from India and Bhutan – to participate. With the assistance of long-time partner the Bangladesh Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI), conducted a diagnostic survey of these organizations’ governance, finances, membership, strategic planning, advocacy, services and other issues. The organizations were then invited to participate in a networking meeting held this February in Dhaka, Bangladesh. CIPE’s efforts complement a U.S. State Department program to build links among women entrepreneurs in the region, the South Asia Women Entrepreneurship Symposium.

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Posted in South Asia

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Thunder Dragon vs. Corruption

Posted on 3 February, 2010 by | 1 Comment
These voters were cheated.
Posters like these from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime are popular in Bhutan, highlighting concrete examples of corruption’s effects on democracy and development.

Bhutan – self-proclaimed “Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon,” one of the world’s newest democracies, and a country fairly high up on the ‘mysterious’ chart. Bhutan has been hidden away from the world nearly since its founding. The establishment of a parliament, the coronation of a new king, and the first-ever elections for the country’s leadership all took place in late 2008. Gradually, Bhutan is becoming more accessible, from an economic perspective, to the world. And yet, even this early in its founding, problems that we see throughout the South Asian region are starting to creep in.

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Posted in South Asia

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“Education Reform in Bhutan: Meeting the Employment Challenge”

Posted on 18 July, 2008 by | Comments Off

Bhutan, a small country wedged between China and India, has made great strides over the past 45 years toward transforming itself from an isolated kingdom into a fledgling modern democracy. The country has progressed in terms of economic and political development, but one significant area still lagging behind is the education system.

In his Feature Service article, Kinley Rinchen, Planning Officer in the Office of the Vice Chancellor at the Royal University of Bhutan and an honorable mention winner in CIPE’s youth essay competition, traces the development of Bhutan’s education system and analyzes its current challenges. He emphasizes that more reforms are necessary to make the country’s education system able to better meet the needs of students and employers. As the Bhutanese economy grows, it needs well-educated and skilled labor in order to make this growth sustainable.

“Education Reform in Bhutan: Meeting the Employment Challenge” was entered in the “Educational Reform and Employment” category and notes that due to inadequate education, many of Bhutan’s graduates have only limited skills that are insufficient for finding suitable employment in a modern marketplace. Instead of striving to acquire the necessary private sector skills, many young people prefer to wait for government employment. In practice, however, that translates into prolonged unemployment since the public sector cannot possibly accommodate all job seekers.

Appropriate education system and curriculum reforms could change that. If young people are equipped with critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and leadership skills in the course of their education, they can succeed in the job market.

Article at a Glance

  • Bhutan’s current education system does not meet the needs of students and employers, only contributing to growing youth unemployment.
  • Most Bhutanese students tend to see education as a way to obtain jobs in the public sector, which cannot accommodate them all.
  • School curricula should emphasize more skills-based training as well as critical thinking, creativity, innovation, communication, and leadership skills sought after by private sector employers.

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Posted in Asia

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Building new democracy in Bhutan

Posted on 2 April, 2008 by | Comments Off

Last week a tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan (population of 600,000) became the world’s newest democracy. With a high turnout of nearly 80 percent, the winning Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) party took 44 out of the 47 seats in the parliament and gained a strong mandate to implement reforms.

There wasn’t much drama involved in the elections. First, it was the King himself who initiated the transition from hereditary monarchy to democracy. In 2006, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck handed over power to his son, the current king, and ordered an end to absolute monarchy (the country will continue to have a monarch as the head of state). Second, the two leading parties competing in the elections had nearly identical programs. Both were promising to bring modernization and pursue greater “gross national happiness,” or a path of development emphasizing the role of respect for culture, religion, and environment in economic progress.

Democracy itself is one of the first elements of this push to modernize. In a country where satellite television came less than a decade ago, not surprisingly democracy was also welcomed with a degree of mistrust by many conservative Bhutanese wary of the unknown. Such mistrust illustrates a crucial broader point: elections are hugely important, but in and of themselves not enough. Now that the elections are over, Bhutan faces a much more profound long-term challenge of building, strengthening, and sustaining its institutions of democratic governance.

As Larry Diamond said in his latest book, one day it is possible for the whole world to become democratic – just as Bhutan did a few days ago. But the performance of many new democracies around the world is very troubling. Even free and competitive elections do not automatically translate into good democratic governance and weak governance in turn leads to instability, corruption, and economic mismanagement.

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Posted in Asia

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