Sustainable Development Innovator: Spotlight on Bhutan

In a time when the de facto speed limit for sustainable development is a sign labeled "faster", one tiny, remote country nestled high in the Himalayas between China and India is taking a different, innovative, approach to the steamroller we often call progress: they're going slow.

The landlocked Kingdom of Bhutan (Druk Yul in Bhutanese) was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for centuries and only haltingly began the process of opening up its borders in the 1970s. It's done so while fiercely guarding that which makes, Bhutan, well Bhutan: national dress is compulsory, a knee-length wrap-around "gho" for men, and an ankle-length dress known as the "kira" for women. Afraid of becoming a dirty backpacker haven like its regional neighbors Nepal and Cambodia, Bhutan strictly regulates tourism - regulating where they can go, how long they can stay, and even sticking a minimum amount tourists must spend; ensuring that tourism contributes more to the economy than it takes away.

In the forty years in which Bhutan has begun to open up its borders, it has transitioned from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy (after decades of planning and consultation), its per capita gross national income rise from $730 in 2000 to $1,900 in 2008, and its life expectancy has risen from 52years in 1990 to 64 in 2007 (on par with India). Infant mortality per 1,000 live births has been reduced from 106 in 2000 to 84 in 2007, and maternal mortality rates in 2007 were estimated at 440 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 500 in the South Asia region overall.

Not bad for a country which coined the use of a Gross National Happiness as a metric of a successful society.

Bhutan's transition has not been without its hiccups - the minority Nepali population feels marginalized and violence in the form of bombings broke out in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Currently 100,000 refugees are living in India. On balance, however, Bhutan has managed to make remarkable strides.

Bhutan's secret?

Bhutan (perhaps tempered by the fact that they were ruled by a monarchy who didn't have to deal with the sort of political infighting those in democracies have to deal with) took the time to move slowly and deliberately. Everything I've read which describes Bhutan's leaders as not by moving quickly, but rather, by as moving slowly and deliberately - giving them time to learn from the mistakes and successes of their neighbors and to choose what they wanted to incorporate and that which they would like to maintain. In going slow, Bhutan also has time to educate a populace so that they can learn how best to shape their own futures.

It's something to admire, perhaps to emulate, and definitely to remember when we hear the resounding drum beat of so-called progress pushing us to move faster, faster, faster. Much as fable of the tortoise and the hare tried to teach us as children, sometimes the fastest route to success is, paradoxically, the slowest most plodding route.