The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a normative (non-binding) global international environmental agreement (IEA)—claim to be universal as they were multilaterally negotiated between UN member states. However, is giving the Global South a seat at the table truly inclusive development? This article looks at a cross-cultural comparison of the African philosophy of Ubuntu (specifically in South Africa), the Buddhist Gross National Happiness (Bhutan) and the native American idea of Buen Vivir (e.g. Ecuador) and how they view the SDGs, how they view ‘development’, ‘sustainability’, goals and indicators, the implicit value underpinnings of the SDGs, prioritization of goals, and missing links, and leadership. Viewed through the lens of the three cosmovisions of the Global, the SDGs do not effectively address the human–nature–well-being interrelationship. Other cosmovisions have an inherent biocentric value orientation that is often ignored in academic and diplomatic circles. These claim to be more promising than continuing green development approaches, based in modernism. On the positive side, the SDGs contain language of all three worldviews. However, the SDGs are not biocentric aiming to respect nature for nature’s sake, enabling reciprocity with nature. They embody linear growth/results thinking which requires unlimited resource exploitation, and not cyclical thinking replacing growth with well-being (of all beings). They represent individualism and exclude private sector responsibility. They do not represent collective agency and sharing, implying that there is a need for ‘development as service’, to one another and to the Earth. Including these perspectives may lead to abolishing the word ‘development’ within the SDGs, replacing it by inter-relationship; replacing end-result-oriented ‘goals’ with process thinking; and thinking in cyclical nature, and earth governance, instead of static ‘sustainability’. The glass can be viewed as half full or half empty, but the analysis shows that Western ‘modernism’ is still a strong underpinning of the SDGs. Bridges can be built between Happiness, Ubuntu and Buen Vivir in re-interpreting goal frameworks, global governance and the globalization process. This article is largely based on Van Norren 2017 (Development as service, a Happiness, Ubuntu, and Buen Vivir interdisciplinary view of the Sustainable Development Goals. Doctoral dissertation, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 2017). Interview findings are numbered with A (Africa); B (Bhutan); E (Ecuador); S (SDGs).
Although the literature covers the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), well-being, and Global Public Goods (GPGs) extensively, there is very little work on connecting these with Southern concepts in order to make the underlying inspiration for policy processes truly inclusive. Hence, this paper focuses on how such links can be made. It argues in favor of linking the Ubuntu -'I am because we are' -to modern ideas of well-being and African communitarian philosophy to GPGs. These two concepts of human well-being and the need to govern GPGs are intrinsically linked to the MDGs post 2015 and could help to make the MDGs truly inclusive.
Bhutan’s current constitution draws upon the historical dual system of religious-civil governance under the monarchy (previously Abbot-king) embodying the Mahayana Buddhist concept of Boddhisatva-leadership. Bhutan’s democracy includes an executive-military and pluralist religious custodian role for the King who can be abdicated by parliament. It includes Gross National Happiness as spiritual core, which is non-binding law, incorporating many human rights and human values like compassion. The ban on proselytization in the secular constitution should be viewed from a geopolitical post-colonial perspective of the Christian civilization mission and India/China annexation-politics, and Asian definitions of secularism (Royal patronage of religious pluralism). Christians do experience restrictions on congregation. Hindu Nepalese-origin migrants experience(d) citizenship issues due to geopolitical context but can express religion fully. GNH-policy also has certain implementation difficulties and the GNH index indicates declining community values and spirituality in the face of modernist development. Bhutan’s constitution does not fall within the definition of theocracy. The clergy is excluded from the electoral process. The King’s authority is mainly based on moral leadership, popular uncertainty about imported democracy, and is non-absolute but larger than conventional constitutional monarchies. The constitution is more secular than Buddhist in its binding provisions and offers space for non-GNH oriented governments, also in recent practice. Preserving identity and stability is Bhutan’s aim and secularism needs to look at a group approach, apart from individualist approaches. Human rights traditions could acknowledge the cultural-religious roots that inspired them and keep human dignity alive, instead of wanting to remove it from the state altogether and making human rights the new religion.
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