Democratic Governance

Bhutan today is a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy after the successful democratic parliamentary elections in 2008 which marked the end of gradual transition from monarchy through a series of political reforms dating back to the 1980s. The country now has a written constitution and an elected government and parliament in power. The constitution provides for only a two party participation in the election to the National Assembly, and these two political parties are to be "established through a primary round of election in which all registered political parties" will participate.

The first ever and historic parliamentary election held in 2008 under the newly adopted constitution recorded a high rate of voter turnout at 79.4% and provided huge majority and mandate for the elected government. The current government will serve for a period of 5 years and the next parliamentary election is due in 2013.

The constitution of Bhutan also provides for a unique democratic governance structure where the central government is based on the political party system and the members of the local governments are non-partisan and elected directly by the communities based on individual capacities. And there are two tiers of local government viz. the Dzongkhag Tshogdu (District Council) and Gewog Tshogde (Block Council). The executive and legislative powers of the local governments are drawn from the Local Government Act of 2010 enacted by the new parliament. The election of local government members will be completed by June 2011 as per the Election Commission of Bhutan.

The establishment of a democratic governance system in 2008 necessitated strengthening of both institutional and peoples' participation and capacity to ensure good governance. As reflected in the UNDAF/cCPAP, UNDP is involved in strengthening the capacity of democratic and constitutional institutions in support of parliamentary democracy. In this regard, UNDP support in democratic governance area covers all key institutions under the executive, legislature and judiciary. However the flagship program in the governance portfolio is the Local Governance Support Program (LGSP) implemented jointly among UNDP, UNCDF, Danida and the governments of Austria and Switzerland to support the decentralisation process through capacity development of local governance systems and provision of Annual Grants to Local Governments as provisioned by the Constitution to improve ownership and accountability of Local Governments in meeting local development needs.

UNDP continues to support national efforts towards democratization and decentralization through capacity and institution development of constitutional bodies such as the Election Commission of Bhutan, Anti-Corruption Commission, Parliament, Royal Audit Authority and Royal Court of Justice, and others such as the Office of the Attorney General, Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Information and Communications, Gross National Happiness Commission, Local Governments, media and the CSOs to help build a firm foundation for the smooth functioning of a democratic governance system in the country.

However, some of the main issues to address for greater impact of governance program is to mainstream gender into different program components to enhance inclusiveness of development interventions. This issue has become difficult to address mainly from the technical point of view with absence of gender disaggregated data and information across all sectors and programmes. The other issue equally compelling and important is the need to continuously support capacity development of both institutions and people that are constantly changing and relocating and creating critical gaps that become difficult to address over short period of time. Whereas there is no coherent capacity development strategy for the central government institutions and organizations, a draft Capacity Development Strategy is in place for the Local Governments which identifies strategic areas and priorities for capacity building to support effectively decentralized governance system in the country.

UNDP's democratic governance support in Bhutan is broadly categorized under the areas such as decentralization and local governance; electoral systems and processes; access to justice; parliamentary development; public administration reform and anti-corruption; and e-governance, access to information and media development.

Ongoing Projects

Closed Projects

UN Support to Localisation of e-governance

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